Saturday, April 7, 2012

Pirates, arrrrr! Oh, and my homemade chicken feeder.


We had pirates in the backyard yesterday


They had a treasure map and all


They came wielding light sabers


They didn't always agree with each other




Or with me....


They kept a look out


And spotted something for dinner
(Hmm, photographing a black chook and a white one in the same photo gives my camera conniptions)



But the dinner was eating her dinner


And do you like my home made chicken feeder? 

I saw this on the web somewhere and thought I'd give it a go, I wanted some way to stop the chooks from flicking their pallets everywhere as they don't seem inclined to ever clean up the stuff they've flicked around and I think it was starting to attract rats. And pigeons.

I took a large yoghurt container (free brand advertising there, I never bother to remove labels), cut four holes around the bottom (you can see one of them in the picture), hot glued the container on to a largish, deepish dish (I used a thingy that is meant to go under a plant pot, bought it from a large hardware store), filled up the container, put the lid on and there you have it.

I also put any other (small) kitchen scraps I give them in the dish too. The chooks free range our small backyard and really only go in their coop at night, so now I pick up the whole dish and put it in there with them when they go to bed. Their coop is rat proof, so we've seen no more evidence of any critters in the backyard since I've started doing that. 

It's deep enough they don't flick food every where and they have yet to tip it over.


And, they are all now confidently using the ramp!

 Dangermouse (that's the black silkie) eventually figured it out and now trips up and down there several times a day, easy as you please.

The wyandottes are being less annoying too, so they have a reprieve for now, though I really would like a small flock of silkies, they're such silly fluffies.


A happy and safe Easter to all!


4 comments:

Charlotte Scott said...

H is a heartbreaker and R has grown so big!! Nice work on the chook feeder too. I've bought commercial ones before and they crap out at an amazing rate so never again.

Hopes Handcrafts said...

Ingenious feeder, Cat! What handsome pirates you have there :0)

emma @ frog, goose and bear said...

I agree - gorgeous pirates! Loving your homemade chook feeder too! There is nothing one cannot do with a hot glue gun;). I found a mouse in our chook house the other day. It had dug a hole from the outside and up under the floor.

Cat J B said...

Thanks gals, yup, the pirates were cute!

And the feeder is still going strong, although this time when I filled it, a while later at least half of it had poured out the holes. Hmmm, gotta work on the design a little, maybe needs smaller holes.

Haven't had anything try to dig into the chook run yet, though we did remove the floor it came with so the run sits on dirt now.....so something COULD dig in if it really wanted....

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