Today I was challenged not to spend $20 on a chicken feeder, but rather, to build one myself.  A few days ago I bought a $4 paint bucket from True Value thinking I could build a feeder with it and a large pan at the bottom for a tray.  I could not find a tray to serve for the job, so I found a bucket that was smaller than the five gallon, and used the bottom of the five gallon bucket for the tray.  The bucket I found was a plant bucket.  There are actually several of them around here that have been out of use for quite some time, and for my project today, I used two of them, and some wire.  The result is pictured below.

I cut the bottoms off one of the black buckets and the white one.  For the white one I left about an inch of depth in the bottom.  Then it was drilled in four places and the black bit drilled in matching locations.  I then inserted the bottom of the black bucket into the white bottom till it was below the lip of the white.  When wired together the feeder was ready.  I drilled four holes into the top of the black bucket and put wire in and crossed them at the top like I was tying a package, only with enough slack that the crossing point at the top is about four or five inches above the lip of the black bucket.  I drilled a small hole through the second black bucket, threaded the support wire through it, and slipped it upside-down over the top of the first black bucket, creating a lid to keep the rain and chickens out of the top of the feed.  The support wire runs from the top crossing point to a beam at the top of the chicken run. 

This is of course a test to see how it all works out, and I will let you know if anything goes wrong!  But for now it will serve as a bulk feeder, and allow us a little less stress when doing the twice daily feeding of all the animals around here.  Maybe it is time to get more! 

Next trick will be to sort out a water dispenser for the chickens!