what are the best drinkers and feeders to use?

[angelat]

hi all,
need some advice as have tried several different feed/drink vessels and wonder what all you lot use. i seem to be ok with the standard red and white dome shape drinker that you tip upside down to fill, but the feeder just doesnt seem to work for me, the one with small sections for them to peck in, they dont like it!! not only that you fill it up and then if it rains, soggy food. i have used ordinary round bowls but they get messy and the ones with the rain hats dont seem to have enough head space underneath them? i am yet to find feeders that dont waste food or make a mess! any ideas?? i dont mind paying more for the right ones.

[Corris]

I have bought a metal drinker and wished I'd done it in the first place. The plastic one broke.

You lift off the outside and fill it upright - it's brilliant! It cost more (£24.99 I think) - but I love it.

[RichmondHens]

I use bog standard black plastic feed buckets for water - they hold 10+ ltrs so plenty for a pen of 6 or 7 chickens, in winter/cool weather I only clean out and refill a couple of times a week. Smaller birds like bantams or growers just perch on the edge.

For feeders I use homemade peck feeders - a barrel on legs with a pecker attachment underneath. Absolutely NO WASTE and keeps the birds busy for longer. I do have a couple of circular trough feeders with "mexican hat" type rain covers which I use for the bantam horde (20 birds round a peck feeder creates too much squabbling and the lower ranked ones get pushed away) and growing birds not yet big enough to reach the peckers. As the birds grow I raise the trough on bricks or chunk of wood so the birds don't have to squeeze underneath the "hat".

I would Google pheasant/game feeders and have a look at those, stuff designed for game birds generally is much better than most of the chicken equipment on the market. Most of the feeders on the market for chickens is (in my opinion anyway) more suited to ornamental bantams, chicks and small growers than the average hen.

[angelat]

the metal drinker sounds good corris, i looked at those, although more expensive bet they are quality.have you got a metal feeder as well?

[angelat]

thanks richmondhens i will definitely google pheasant/game feeders and have a look i would never have thought of that. i tend to agree about chicken equipment on the market at the moment, i have ordered feeders/drinkers before and the size of them would hardly feed the sparrows!!

[Corris]

nope, I have a plastic feeder - it doesn't have the weight of water.

But the water drinker Is wonderful.

[jps]

i have one of the 30 litre barrel waterers in pen 1 and the standard red and white in run 2. the red and white gets full of mud from being on the floor or kicked over if raised up.

the barrel one feeds water into a red dish underneath which somehow seems to get muddy everyday, i cam only assume they have muddy faces from pecking the ground.

i may try the bucket idea, it will still get muddy but at least its easy to change

[OverWyreGrower]

I've got a treadle feeder, and it's brilliant! It holds about 20kg of food (almost a whole sack) and is blummin' rat proof!

It took the birds about a week to work out how to use it, but now they all know, it's great. I brought in some new birds recently, and they have been much quicker to learn, as they can see the existing birds feeding from it.

We are going to buy at least 1 more I think this year!