Investing in chickens is one of the best ways to help make yourself more sustainable and reliant on your own food. But part of having chickens on your homestead means taking care of them, and taking care of them means feeding them.
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While you may think that taking care of chickens requires a significant financial investment, the truth is it doesn’t have to be that way, and there are a number of ways you can take care of your chickens using items you probably already have. We’re going to discuss one such way here.
As this video by Lumnah Acres discusses, here’s how to build a DIY automatic chicken feeder from a five-gallon bucket.
To get started, you’re going to need a five-gallon pail, a lid, a three-inch 90-degree PVC elbow, packing table, sharpie, razor knife, file, three and a half-inch hole swab bit, a drill, and a three-sixteenth drill bit.
Once you have these items accumulated, follow each of these steps:
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- Cut the 90-degree PVC elbow in half in the curve’s middle.
- Mark 2 holes on the bucket, each four inches up from the base and six inches apart from one another.
- Drill holes where you have marked; they could be three and a half inches (save the pieces of the bucket that are drilled out).
- File the PVC elbows by 1/8” from the bottom quarter so they can fit tightly in your circle; depending on your PVC pipes, this may or may not be necessary.
- Test for a good fit.
- Drill a 3/16” hole in the top center of the fitting; you should see a factor mold line on the center of the fitting.
- Place a river to hold this fitting in place.
- Use a hammer and pliers to flatten a quarter of the rivet flange so it can become a flat stop for the rivet resting against the bucket.
- Take the two plastic pieces that you saved from before and clean the edge.
- Mark a line on one slug three-fourths of the way down the circle, so you will cut off one fourth.
- Tape the circle into the backside of the fitting; this will permit your chickens access to a small area of feed but will also keep too much feed from falling out.
- Install the two fitting halves into the holes; make sure that they are centered.
- Installed a rivet in the rivet holt; make sure that the flatter half of the flange is flush up against the bucket; it should be tight so glue is not necessary.
To see it done step by step, watch the video by Lumnah Acres below.
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