Tag Archives: Livestock
Toy for Pigs
Cats play with yarn, dogs chase frisbees and parakeets have their mirrors. Like any domesticated animal, pigs need some form of intellectual stimulation.
Many homesteaders recommend giving a pig a bowling ball to push around, but bowling balls are hard to find out in the country! Not only that, but they would probably sink into the mud and be lost forever.
What we do have plenty of on the farm are 5 gallon buckets, and pigs seem to be more than happy to push them around.
Here’s our four pork units, fighting over their new plaything.
Chicken Feeder
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Article Contents
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- Best Commercial Chicken Feeders
- Make your Own 5 Gallon Bucket Chicken Feeder
- More 5 Gallon Bucket Chicken Care Equipment
Best Commercial Chicken Feeders
These are 3 chicken feeders we have used and recommend.
Hanging 17″ Galvanized Feeder
We like our feeders as large as possible, so we don’t have to go out as often to fill up chicken food. Before we built our 5 gallon bucket feeder, we used one like this for 20 Rhode Island Reds. We filled it every couple days. Unlike our metal chicken waterer, it never west rusty but when we switched to a more crumbly organic feed it didn’t flow as well. This feeder doesn’t come with a cover, which is highly recommended if your birds roost above their food.
Find on Amazon >>
Plastic Enclosed Feeder
When we only had 4 birds we used a smaller plastic feeder like this one which worked great. It keeps the food enclosed so they can’t poop on it. If they made a larger version we would have gone with that instead of the metal cylinder.
Find on Amazon >>
Mason Jar Chick Feeder
This is the best feeder for chicks. It’s cheap and has rounded corners so those little chicken babies don’t hurt themselves. We used a narrow mouth mason jar which seemed to fit great. When refilling, just dump all the leftover chicken feed back out into your supply before screwing it back on, or you’ll get feed everywhere. Chicks are hungry so you’ll be refilling this often until they grow up enough to use the adult bird feeders.
Find on Amazon >>
Make your own 5 Gallon Bucket Chicken Feeder
I made this feeder because our old metal feeder didn’t flow well using organic feed, which was for some reason was very crumbly and would clump much more. Instead of trying to punch bigger holes in the metal feeder, I built this one from scratch. An important side benefit for us is that this new feeder is gigantic! We fill the feeder up much less now than we used to. Total cost for this project was less than 10 dollars.
The 5 gallon bucket feeder is much easier to make than our 5 gallon bucket waterer, because you don’t need to seal everything to create a vacuum inside the container.
Benefits of this Feeder over commercial feeders we have tried:
- A tiny fraction of the price
- Twice the capacity
- Won’t rust
- Hole can be enlarged for different feed types
- See the feed level at a glance
Ingredients
You will need:
- 5 gallon bucket (lid is optional)
- Nuts and bolts (I use these stove bolts)
- Plastic saucer with vertical sides (14″ seems good)
You want a saucer with vertical sides because otherwise chickens will scratch their food all over the place; scratching is how they find food in the wild.
The saucer I’m using isn’t completely vertical, but it is close enough to work. Here’s an example of a “deep” saucer, which is the kind you need.
Stage 1: Drilling
Holes need to be drilled all over the place. First drill three holes in the bottom of the saucer unit.
These holes need to line up perfectly with 3 more holes on the bottom of the bucket. Flip the bucket upside down and rest the saucer on its bottom, now facing up. You can mark where to drill with a long, skinny pen or just drill right through, which is what I ended up doing.
Now we need a hole near the bottom of the bucket for feed to flow through. The largest drill bit I have is 1/2″ which isn’t nearly big enough, so I cut about a one inch round hole with an exacto knife. It is important to not cut the hole too high. I made the center of the hole roughly level with the top of the rim. It’s better to underestimate the size of the hole at first and cut away more as needed. If you have a hole saw (I want to buy this one but cannot get it shipped to Canada) you can very quickly drill a large perfectly circular hole where you need it.
I made only one hole at first, and another one later on the opposite side. Two holes in the bucket seemed to more than enough for 20 greedy chickens.
Stage 2: Bolting
Securing the saucer to the bucket is very easy, just thread the 3 bolts through the 3 holes and attach 3 nuts. I used some extra large nuts I had lying around as spacers between the bucket bottom and the saucer.
Stage 3: Testing
When I filled the bucket with feed for testing, it turned out my hole was still not big enough for the feed to flow smoothly. We use an organic feed that seems to have a lot of small particle sized pieces, which prevent it from flowing easily. I kept cutting away at the holes (cutting off below the saucer lip is preferable to cutting above) until I was satisfied with the feed flow.
Only after I found the right hole size for my feed did I make another hole on the back. If you prefer, you can keep cutting holes but I felt 2 was enough for the amount of chickens we have.
More 5 Gallon Bucket Chicken Care Equipment
If you’re building the 5 gallon bucket chicken feeder, you’ll also be interested in our other five gallon solutions to chicken care. Link: 5 gallon bucket chicken care posts.
Chicken Nesting Boxes
Egg laying chickens should have a comfortable place to sit and nest if you don’t want them to lay eggs here and there and everywhere. All pre-made chicken coops or chicken coop plans will include 12″x12″x12″ nesting boxes (one cubic foot), which is considered to be big enough for all sizes of laying hen.
A standard 5 gallon plastic bucket has a radius of 5.5″ and a depth of 14″, making its volume 0.76 cubic feet, which is close enough to keep most breeds of chicken happy!
You can see that 2/3 of the lid is cut away, leaving the bottom 1/3 intact, which is necessary to prevent the chickens from kicking all the straw all over the floor. Use wood shavings instead for the best bedding. The rubberized strip is important to protect those delicate chicken feet from getting scratched by the sharp plastic edge. I would probably use a segment of bike tube for my rubberized edge, bike shops give them away free by the dozens.
The back of the nesting box is screwed onto 2x4s which run the length of the coop. This ensures that they won’t roll around.
(Update) A reader has informed me that any breed of chicken will use these types of nesting boxes – even the very large Buff Orpington variety!
There’s many more ways to use buckets for chicken care. Check out these additional five gallon ideas:
Chicken Waterer
Here’s a waterer I made for our new flock of chickens. I made a few modifications to a simple design I’ve found elsewhere online. (See how to make the simple version on HomesteadRules.com)
The simple waterers work fine, but the design needs to be modified if you want them to hang from above ground on a hook, which is more appropriate for inside a chicken coop.
My design hangs from its handle, and fills via a spigot on the top, which is a feature I haven’t seen in any other chicken waterer.
Benefits of this chicken waterer:
- 1/10 the price of commercial model
- Twice the capacity of commercial model
- Won’t rust like some commercial models
- See the water level at a glance
Ingredients
You will need
- Five gallon plastic bucket
- Lid with a spigot (or standard lid with a rubber seal will work too) – I found this lid for sale online which is similar to the one I use.
- Flat rubber plumbing washers
- Nuts and bolts (I use these stove bolts)
- Tiny rubber gaskets
- 14″ plant pot saucer (like this one)
Tip: Click any of these pictures for an extreme close-up!
Basically, the trick here is to attach the saucer to the bottom of the bucket using bolts. To thread the bolts through, holes must be drilled in both the bucket and the saucer. The rubber washers are necessary to prevent water leaking out the holes.
Task 1: Drilling!
Holes need to be drilled all over the place. First drill three holes in the bottom of the saucer unit.
These holes need to line up perfectly with 3 more holes on the bottom of the bucket. Flip the bucket upside down and rest the saucer on its bottom, now facing up. You can mark where to drill with a long, skinny pen or just drill right through, which is what I ended up doing.
Next drill a 1/2″ hole at the very bottom of the bucket’s side. Originally I made the hole 1/8″, which is far too small for the water vacuum pressure magic to work. Take care in where you locate this hole, as the top of the opening will be the water level of the final product. If you drill too high, water will spill over the edges, and if you drill too low the chickens will not be able to drink. It’s Better to err on the low side initially, and make the hole taller if you need to later.
Task 2: Bolting
I used 3/4″ long 3/16″ wide stove bolts to secure the saucer to the bucket. Between the saucer and the bucket I used flat rubber washers with about a 3/16″ center hole (I tested the fit before I bought the hardware.) For extra insurance, I used tiny gasket seals as washers on the top. On the bottom, I just used ordinary metal washers.
The outer seal of my lid worked well in maintaining the vacuum, but the spout did not have a seal on it, so I put one in to keep air from leaking through the spout. Even with the seal, the spout must be screwed very tightly to keep the orifice sealed. I will probably buy another seal for the cap so I can get a double seal as extra insurance.
Here is the finished product, hanging in the coop. Although the chickens seem to be ignoring it right now, it definitely works!
And here is the waterer outside on a cinder block., still being ignored by the flock. Notice that you can see the level of the water inside right through the bucket wall. This is very handy!
Update: The seal ended up gradually getting worse and worse on this unit, even when I tried doubling up. I think the plastic screw threads started bending and eroding so the unit would not stay sealed any more. I tried a few different things to repair it and ended up with the simplest solution imaginable, a sink drain plug (like this one). 1 1/4″ ended up being the right size for my lid, although 1/16″ bigger would have been better, but doesn’t exist.
Update 2: Also look into “chicken nipples” for a waterer that you only need to drill a few holes for. You won’t be able to rest it on the ground anymore but it’s easier to build. We wrap yellow tape around the buckets with chicken nipples in them so we don’t accidentally put them in the dirt.
Check out all our other 5 gallon bucket chicken care posts.