Duck and Chicken Feeder Plan

You can make one of your daily chores a once-a-week chore by building a simple automatic feeder for your ducks, chickens, or other poultry.

For this project we used:

• A recycled Christmas cookie tin
• A recycled piece of wire
• 4 small screw-in eye hooks
• A piece of 4″ sewer PVC pipe
• Duck Feed!

You can watch the video for this project below (or click here), or keep scrolling for the rest of the instructions:

Automatic Livestock Feeder:

The concept of this project is simple: Fill the tube with feed and as the birds eat the feed, more will come out. This means you only have to refill the tube as often as they can empty it, rather than having to feed them by hand every morning and evening, or whatever schedule you are currently using.

First, decide what container you are going to use that the duck feed will drop in to. This is where feed will pour in to from the tube – the area where the birds will eat from. It should have a bit of an edge or lip to it, say, at least 1 inch. However tall it is, keep that height in mind for later.

Now, where do you want to use this feeder? In our video we mounted it to our shed, for several reasons. You may have another area in mind. Wherever that may be, decide on the height you need and cut your PVC pipe to that height. Remember, the higher you can manage it, the more feed the tube will hold and the longer between the times you have to refill it.

Pick one end of the pipe to cut and angle out of. This is where the feed will pour into the container you chose earlier. Whatever the height of your container is, be sure not to cut higher than that distance on your pipe. If you do, it is more likely that the feed will spill out of the container. Also, leave about 1 to 2 inches of the pipe at the original length.

This is so it has a place to sit on at the bottom of the container. When done, you should have about 1 to 2 inches of pipe at the original length and then an angle cut from that point, to the point of the height of your container.

Set the pipe into the container and mount it. In our case, we used small eye hooks and wire to hold the pipe securely against our shed wall.

That is it! Just fill the pipe with feed and check back every few days to see how quickly your birds are going through it. You can also tap on the side of the pipe – it is fairly easy to tell where the pipe is hollow, and where it is still full of feed.

Other Options:

Do you keep your poultry “free range”, but have a problem with some getting a little too far away? Check out our tip on how to keep your livestock close to home.

Want automatic feeding but need to feed a larger flock? Check our our 3-bag Easy Automatic Chicken Feeder DIY.

Do you like our posts? Would you Sign Up for our Newsletter? We will only send you an email if we have something new to share, and never more than one email per day! And don’t forget to Subscribe to our YouTube Channel!