Want to make a PVC feeder, but where should I put it?

[acissej]

My husband and I have been trying to figure out how best to mount a PVC feeder to our coop. We're not sure where it should go. There are doors in the way all over the coop! It definitely needs to go either under the coop, in the coop, or in the covered run (the one on the right)...but how would I attach it? I'm confused...heh. Here's a pic of our coop. The back looks just like this with two doors on the coop, but the back of the runs don't have doors. The left side of the coop that you can see here has the 3 nesting doors, so there aren't those doors on the right side. This will be our only feeder since we only have 6 chickens, so it needs to work well and not get wet.

 

[Zahboo]

NO clue, but cute coop

I personally would put it in the coop so an ant pile doesn't form near the feeder, but Idk how bad ants are where you are.

 

[fl_deb]

I have no answer, but can I come live at your place?

 

[Dogfish]

Nice coop!

One suggestion would be to place the supply tube for the feeder to the left of the top left door. Looks like there is about a foot of space. Use the appropriate hole saw held at a 45 degree angle. Cut a straight piece of pipe, thread it through the hole you made, and attach to a 45 degree elbow. Drill another hole straight through the floor, attach the correct length of pipe to the 45 degree elbow in the coop proper. Use a 90 degree elbow, a cap, and another section of pipe to make the feeder trough. Place a cap on the piece that extends out of the coop, as this is where you would fill it from. This will be a fair amount of work to build a self contained PVC feeder. Use 3" or 4" pipe.

I might just suggest a 5 gallon Home Depot bucket, build a small cone from some sheet metal, add a planter base, drill some 1" holes with a hole saw close together, and you are good. Less potential damage to such a nice coop, and your can remove it for cleaning much easier. Total cost was $3.24 for the bucket and $4.89 for the planter base. Had the sheet aluminum, so I made a cone, drilled some holes, and attached the planter base to the bucket. Add some feed and it works! I'd place it anywhere you can easily access it so that it could stay under the main coop to keep it dry. Another option would be to put it off to the right where it looks like you have some corrugated roofing.

Did you build it or was it built for you by someone else? Cool design.

 

[PineappleMama]

We put a bit of pipe on the bottom, and buried that to keep it grounded (bad pun)... then attach to the coop with plumber's tape and screws.

Had thought about turning the opening to under the coop, but then we did the HC floor so THAT was out... instead I build a little roof over our 'drive through" If that makes no sense, the instructions (such as they are) are on My Page - The-Pineapple-Diner

 

[acissej]

Thanks for the ideas! I had it built for me, since we have no time or skills to do one ourselves. We did fix it up a bit, adding the hardware cloth and extra locks. Dogfish, do you need to hang that type of feeder? That was our biggest problem is we have no place to hang a feeder and it seems like most of them need to be hung so the feed gets knocked down as the chickens bump into it.

 

[PineappleMama]

Okay, I see the square with an X doors... are those duplicated on the other side of the same section?

If not, then you could put a pipe feeder like mine right in the crook, tape to coop, but you'd have to snip a whole in your hardware cloth... don't know if you'd want to do that, if it was me I'd get some small wood (baseboard or such) and make the feeder hole a very tight square with the HC screwed into those small pieces (screw and 1" washers work wonders)...

I really don't know that that would work for you though... can't tell where all the doors are, and you have reinforced corners... *shrug*