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Household maintenance takes a lot of time and effort from the owner. Even if only chickens are kept in the barn, they need to change the litter, pave the nests, and, most importantly, feed them on time. It is not profitable to use primitive bowl or crate feeders as most of the feed is scattered on the floor and mixed with the droppings. Shop containers for feeding birds are expensive. In this situation, the poultry farmer will help out an automatic chicken feeder, which you can assemble yourself in a couple of hours.
Automatic feeders device
Auto feeders differ in a large variety of designs, but they all work according to the same principle: feed is automatically added to the tray from the bunker as it is eaten by chickens. The advantage of such a device lies in the constant provision of food to the bird, as long as it is present in the container. The hopper is very convenient because it can contain a large supply of feed. Let's say that the daily food intake will save the owner from visiting the chicken coop with broilers every 2-3 hours. Thanks to the automatic feeding, the feed is dosed, and this is already a good saving.
Factory made auto feeders
Factory chicken feeders are available in a variety of modifications. Cheap options are offered to poultry farmers in the form of feed containers with or without a hopper. Expensive models already come with a timer, and a special mechanism is installed for scattering the feed. The cost of such car feeders starts from 6 thousand rubles. A set timer automates the feeding process. The owner only needs to set the correct time and fill the bunker with feed on time, and the auto feeder will do the rest by itself. Feeders are usually made of plastic or sheet metal with a powder coating.
Cheap models with tray and hopper are ready-to-use designs. The poultry farmer only needs to fill the container with food and make sure that it does not run out.
The very cheap auto feeder is only sold in one tray. The poultry farmer needs to look for himself what to make the bunker from. Typically, these trays have a special mount designed for a glass jar or plastic bottle.
For expensive car feeders, an additional installation of a barrel with a volume of at least 20 liters is required. The photo shows how such a structure is fixed on steel pipe racks. The mechanism itself is installed from the bottom of the barrel. It runs on conventional batteries or a rechargeable battery. The timer is used to set the response time of the grain spreading mechanism. Even the amount of feed poured out is regulated in the automation settings.
The use of expensive car feeders is beneficial when keeping a large population of chickens. For a small number of poultry, small, cheap products are suitable.
Primitive bucket feeder
Now we will look at how a primitive do-it-yourself chicken feeder with automatic feed is made. To make it, you need any plastic container for the bunker and tray.For example, let's take a bucket with a capacity of 5-10 liters from water-based paint or putty. This will be the bunker. For the tray, you need to find a bowl with a larger diameter than a bucket with a side height of about 15 cm.
The auto-feeder is made according to the following technology:
- Small windows are cut out at the bottom of the bucket with a sharp knife. They need to be done in a circle with a step of about 15 cm.
- The bucket is placed in a bowl, and the two bottoms are pulled together with a self-tapping screw or bolt. With good glue, the hopper can be simply glued to the tray.
That's the whole technology of making an auto feeder. The bucket is covered with dry food to the top, covered with a lid and placed in the chicken coop. If desired, such a feeder can be hung at a small height from the floor. To do this, the rope is tied at one end to the handle of the bucket, and the other end is fixed with a bracket on the ceiling of the house.
Bunker feeders made of wood
Auto feeders made from plastic buckets, bottles and other containers are good only for the first time. In the sun, the plastic dries up, cracks, or simply such structures deteriorate from accidental mechanical stress. It is best to make a reliable bunker-type auto feeder from wood. Any sheet material such as chipboard or plywood is suitable for work.
Bunker feeder without pedal
The simplest version of a wooden auto-feeder is a hopper with a lid, at the bottom of which there is a grain tray. The photo shows a drawing of such a design. On it, you can cut out fragments of an auto feeder from sheet material.
The procedure for making an auto feeder is as follows:
- The presented diagram already contains the sizes of all fragments. In this example, the length of the auto-feeder is 29 cm. Since one adult chicken should fit 10-15 cm of the tray with food, this design is designed for 2-3 individuals. For more chickens, you can make several auto feeders or calculate your own sizes.
- So, all the details from the diagram are transferred to sheet material. You should get two side shelves, a bottom, a lid, a side of the tray, a front and a back wall. Fragments are cut out with a jigsaw, after which all ends are cleaned with emery paper from burrs.
- Along the edges of the parts, where they will be connected, holes are made with a drill for hardware. Further, according to the drawing, all the parts are connected into a single whole. When assembling the auto feeder hopper, you need to pay attention that the front and rear walls are at an angle of 15about inside the structure.
- The top cover is hinged.
The finished auto-feeder is impregnated with an antiseptic. After the impregnation has dried, grain is poured into the hopper, and their product is placed in the chicken coop.
Bunker feeder with pedal
The next type of wooden auto feeder consists of the same hopper with a tray, only we will automate this design with a pedal. The principle of operation of the mechanism is that the pedal will be pressed by chickens. At this time, the tray cover is lifted through the rods. When the chicken is full, it moves away from the feeder. The pedal rises, and with it the lid closes the feed tray.
For the manufacture of an auto feeder with a pedal, the previous scheme is suitable. But the size should not be increased. For the mechanism to work, the chicken that has entered the pedal must be heavier than the lid of the tray.
First you need to make a bunker feeder. We have already considered it. But when drawing up the drawing, you need to add two rectangles for the tray cover and the pedal. The rods are made from six bars. Take the two longest workpieces. They will hold the pedal. Two blocks of medium length are prepared to secure the tray cover.And the last two, the shortest bars, will be used to connect long and medium workpieces that form a lifting mechanism. The dimensions of all elements of the pedal mechanism are calculated individually according to the dimensions of the auto feeder.
When the auto feeder is ready, proceed to install the pedal mechanism:
- Two bars of medium length are fixed with self-tapping screws to the cover of the tray. At the other end of the bars, 2 holes are drilled. The mechanism will be fixed with bolts. For this, the extreme holes located closer to the end of the bars are drilled with a larger diameter than the bolt itself. The same holes are also drilled in the side shelves of the auto feeder bunker. Further, a bolted connection is made so that the bars move freely along the axis of the bolts and the cover is lifted.
- By a similar method, the pedal with the longest bars is fixed. The same holes are drilled, only those into which the bolts for connecting to the hopper will be inserted are positioned at 1/5 of the length of the bar.
- Two short bars connect the whole mechanism. On these blanks, they are drilled along the edges of the hole. They are already present at the ends of the long and medium bars. Now it remains to connect them with bolts only rigidly, otherwise the cover will not rise when the pedal is pressed.
The operability of the mechanism is checked by pressing the pedal. If the cover does not rise, the rigid connection bolts must be tightened further.
In the video, an automatic feeder:
Conclusion
As you can see, if you wish, you can make an auto feeder yourself. This will save your home budget, and equip the chicken coop at your own discretion.
