When breeding laying hens at home, questions arise about how best to organize poultry feeding so that feed losses are minimized. It’s easy to make chicken feeders with your own hands, you just need to choose the right materials for the product.
The chicken feeder is made of plywood in the following sequence. First, sheets for vertical walls are cut. We make them high. A high chicken feeder allows you to perform a single filling of compound feeds or grain for several days, so as not to return to their filling for some time. To prevent the feed from getting stuck, a plywood sheet with a slight bias towards the front is installed in the lower part of the DIY chicken feed box. With this installation, the bulk material will slide to the front and become accessible to the bird. As a result of experiments to determine the optimal installation angle of inclined plywood, it was found that a slope of 20-25 ° is most suitable for granular feed. If you intend to feed with grain, then the angle of inclination can be slightly reduced, it is enough to have it equal to 12-15 about .
So that chickens can peck food, you need to create a small area in front of the feeder, limited by planks. Such an installation will not allow chickens to sprinkle food, to fit into it with their paws. It will always be available for bite. The height of the front side should be 50-65 mm. Side rails can be made one and a half to two times higher, about 80-120 mm. Such fences provide access, but do not allow the bird to climb into the chicken feeders with its paws. The front wall, which will complete the general formation of the device, is also sawed with your own hands.
As noted earlier, to reduce the time spent on serving chickens, you need to create a significant amount of feed in the feeder. Therefore, you can increase the height of the trough itself to 900-975 mm. At this height, it is easy to fill the feed with an ordinary bucket.
In order for the feeder to last longer, it must be protected from environmental influences. Antiseptic treatment will prevent rot. Such an impregnation is preferably performed before the final assembly of the chicken feeder. With your own hands, the application of impregnation can be performed using a spray gun. Then the process will take a little time. You can apply the antiseptic with a roller or brush.
Acrylic painting gives the finished look to the chicken feeder. With your own hands, using self-tapping screws and a screwdriver, it is not difficult to complete the assembly of the product. The heads of the screws must be coated with a primer, and then also painted over with acrylic paint.
In addition to the feeder on the site where poultry is kept , a drinker for chickens is required. The most common are vacuum drinking bowls, convenient in operation. For their manufacture, deep plates are used, in which you can install five-liter bottles from under the water. In order for the liquid level to be at least 20-35 mm, you need to place a small board of the right height under the cork with holes. The capacity is fixed using a wire.