what is your most useful chicken related item?

[OverWyreGrower]

Wallpaper scraper, plastic wheelbarrow, corn!

I love my cockerel! Fred always comes up, pestering for treats, cuddles etc I occasionally have to move him with my foot, but that's cos he's trying to sit on me/in my bucket/barrow etc

[jessmorris]

My most useful items are home built peck feeders. We just cap the pecker with a flower pot and bungee cord at night to prevent rodent raiding.

Hello RM, I wondered if you would be able to describe these? I need to bulid something to keep pellets dry in the day when its raining but that can be shut at night to keep rats off.....yours sound good!

My most useful item is the auto door openers, and I would have to say also my lovely neighbour and her boys who come and feed my girls when I'm away!

I s'pose my big bottle waterers are also good cause they are hard for the birds to foul.....

[janeyo]

my most useful chicken related item is their eggs!
I use them all the time, I boil them for brekkie, bake with them, sell a few to friends, give some to worthy causes like my mum who looks after my children while I am at work...

[RichmondHens]

Hello RM, I wondered if you would be able to describe these? I need to bulid something to keep pellets dry in the day when its raining but that can be shut at night to keep rats off.....yours sound good!
....

I've just partly described these on another thread but basically we copied the idea from some you can buy ready done (often used for game bird rearing). They are plastic barrels attached to wooden legs which can be adjusted to suit the height of the birds. We have taller ones for the bigger birds and shorter legged ones for bantams. Underneath the barrel is a hole feeder (like a bean can with holes punched in). The barrel is filled from the top (it has a screw on/off lid) and the feed collects in the hole bit underneath where the birds spy it through the holes and peck it out. These feeders are great because you can leave them in situ day and night as they are weather proof, and we came up with a cap made from a flower pot on a bungee to cover the feeder part at night to stop various wildlife from trying to get the pellets out.

Saying that you can't stop everything - we had a small colony of young rooks earlier in the year which continuously raided the feeder in the enclosure in the top field and they were a real pain. I took to only feeding those particular hens a small amount several times a day so there was no feed hanging about in the feeder and the rooks got bored in the end and went off to find easier pickings.

[jessmorris]

Thank you, I'll see what I can devise for my girls!