Chicken Feeders
Keep your chickens happy with a new chicken feeder.
Available in a range of options from basic pellet feeders to auto feeders that prevent wild birds and rodents from eating all your chicken food!
What is a chicken feeder?
Chickens aren’t picky about where they eat. Feed can be thrown on the floor, put out on a dish, served on gold plates with accompanying dinnerware - your chickens will eat it just the same.
However, dispersing feed by throwing it on the floor is a wasteful way to get your hens what they need and it makes it much harder to ensure that everybody gets their fair share. Chickens argue about food, and birds lower on the pecking order might go hungry without careful feed control - not to mention that scattered, uneaten food can attract rodents into the pasture or even into the chicken coop.
Outpost Buildings chicken feeders are designed to deal with these issues. They offer a cleaner, smarter way to feed your hens, providing the right amount of food in the right place at the right time (depending on design). We offer several different styles of feeder, from simple plastic tub-style feeders through to fully automated Chookaterias. All are tried and true, tough, durable and steady feeders that can stand up to even the most impatient flock. An awesome addition to your chicken housing!
The benefits of having a chicken feeder
Food safety
If you have a trough, a dish or a bowl filled with feed, your chickens are probably sharing their food with flocks of wild birds and rodents. In fact, you could be losing 40% or more of your poultry feed that way! But it isn’t just about losing the feed: your birds are put at risk of disease every time they come into contact with these unwelcome visitors - or what they leave behind in the feed once they’ve had their fill. A hanging feeder or an automated feeder makes it much harder for animals other than your chickens to get at the food and contaminate it.
Food cleanliness
It’s not just other animals that may contaminate your food. Chickens are messy eaters and will happily stand right in feeding trays or troughs to get better access to the food - potentially soiling the feed with mud or droppings. Covered chicken feeders also keep the food protected from the elements, keeping it fresh and dry, and reducing the need to get it out of the shed or livestock shelter.
Reduced wastage
Chicken feeders reduce spillage of the chicken feed, particularly when compared to feeding the birds by hand. Not only that, but they also keep the supply regulated and even reduce food fights (as everybody gets a chance to feed at some point).
Durability
Our chicken feeders are all commercial-standard models, constructed from either durable plastic or tough stainless steel. These feeders can take a knock, and last for many years.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the best type of chicken feeder?
When considering the ideal chicken feeder, you’re sure to have a few things on your wishlist:
+ Easy set up
+ Easy cleaning
+ Reduced waste and mess
+ Pest proof
+ Water and weather proof
+ Reasonably priced
Outpost Buildings chicken feeders check all these boxes and more!
We provide a range of different types of chicken feeders, including large automatic ‘Chooketeria’ feeders, as well as more simple barrel-style feeders that can also be suspended off the ground.
Which of these suit you depends on the size of your flock, the space that you have, and your budget.
Our basic Poultry Feeder is a great, simple choice. It’s made from high quality outdoor grade plastic and can hold up to 5kg of pellets or mash, with a removable lid for easy filling. It’s strong enough to avoid being knocked over by hens or weather, but also light enough to be suspended from a string or wire if you prefer a raised chicken feeder.
Our Chooketeria Hen Feeder is a treadle-style chicken feeder, allowing your hens access to their food on their own terms, requiring them to simply step on the treadle to open the feed bin. This ensures greater security against rodents and other animals, and can be filled with up to 5kg of grains, pellets or mash - whatever you prefer to feed your birds, the Chooketeria can keep safe and fresh.
Lastly, the Feed-o-Matic Hen Feeder holds a huge 12kg of feed, making it a perfect choice for those with a large number of birds or those who simply don’t want to have to replace the feed as often. This design ensures that no feed is ever exposed to the elements, keeping it fresh and dry in nearly any conditions - and the treadle system means that a bird as light as 250 grams can operate it with a single step.
What size chicken feeder do I need?
We have chicken feeders to cover nearly any size of flock, but which is the right size for you? This may depend on how often you want to feed your birds - do you want a feeder that you can fill up and then go away for the weekend without having to worry that your chickens might run out of food?
Having multiple small feeders is often better than having one large feeder, this will allow more chickens to feed at the same time, we generally recommend the following:
One Poultry Feeder or Chooketeria: suitable for flocks of up to 12 birds
Two Poultry Feeders or Chooketerias for flocks of up to 30 birds
Feed-o-Matic Hen Feeder: is a great option for people who don’t want to feed their hens every day.
However, this is just a general suggestion. The best way to figure out the size of the feeder you need and how many feeders is to observe your flock at feeding time and keep an eye on whether all of your chickens are getting enough food. Sometimes, chickens lower in the pecking order will not get enough food, as they are chased away by the more dominant birds. In some cases, they may not get any food at all if you have a bully in the flock.
If this happens, you may want to invest in a second feeder, so that those birds that would otherwise go hungry have a secondary feeder to go to if the first is being occupied by the dominant birds.
If you have a smaller flock, we recommend avoiding especially large feeders. Once filled, it may take a long time for your birds to eat their way through. Our feeders help to keep the food fresh, but that only goes so far! An average chicken gets through about 120 to 150 grams of feed per day, depending on their breed and size. Calculate your feeder size accordingly.
Whatever your budget, get in touch with us and we’re sure we can find a suitable solution to suit your needs.