Best Zero Waste Bulk Gravity Chicken Feeder/Waterer Saves Money $$$
Like 3 Dislike 0 Published on 15 Jul 2013
Wow, never thought 65,700 people would want to view this video about bulk feeding your chickens.
UPDATED VIEWER COUNT: MAY 09, 2017.. Pet stores and chickens feed stores are going to hate this product because they're never gonna sell any food. I put this together a few weeks ago and already I can tell it's saving me about 80% in feed. It's really simple to put together and only took about an hour. It uses gravity. The food source it's placed on the wiremesh floor. The wiremesh floor sits on top of a funnel. The funnel sits in a table stand which rests over a 5 gallon bucket. As the birds eat, the food spills and passes through the wiremesh down into the final and into the 5 gallon bucket. When the food source on top gets empty I refill it with the contents of the 5 gallon bucket. So far there has been zero waste. I repeat zero waste. At the end of one week I toss what's left which is about 15 to 20%. I'm not quite sure why they leave about 15 to 20% but I do notice on the last day of the week that they really don't seem interested in that food. That bottom 15% then gets put in my compost bin. Overall it's a great deal. Please comment if you're interested - thanks.
Update:
80% is an estimate. Also, I probably topped off the feeder more than I should have instead just letting them eat more off the ground, but I didn't like that route (messy, confusing to tell dirt from dirty food, and too much arbitrary $$$ wasted at my discretion) so I tried this.
I've had no problems with the chickens fighting over food space. They were all eating at once because they had not had any food in a couple of hours. I tried to make a few videos before, but they weren't demonstrating the process too well because they were full. I feel that the chickens gave a much better presentation on an empty stomach. I thought it would add to the video if the device could be seen in use.
Slight drawback to this coop is that the feed gets a little powder-like towards the end of the week. Probably due to the many refillings from the 5 gallon bucket. Feed probably just crumbles a bit more due to the friction of being jostled back into the feed tower 7 times. By the end of the week, I will take the last 20% out and mix it into kitchen leftovers. That way everything will be eaten. They don't mind the powder if it's stuck to table scraps.
You must have come across my post in search of your own way to reduce waste. What have you come up with yet? I'd love to know what other creative people (not that I'm especially creative) might be doing.
Anyway, thanks for watching and...more importantly for everyone out there...thanks for posting a reply.
Jeff