Automated Chicken Feeder

chicken feeder

Tom has written up how he built his automated chicken feeder. First he constructed a large funnel inside the chicken coop. This feeds into a hardwood block where the auger is located. He had originally tried using a drill bit run by a slow moving copier motor, but it couldn’t slip so it would jam occasionally. The bit was replaced with a coil of stiff wire. It didn’t have as fast a feed rate so it needed to be run for a longer time period. The final piece is modifying an outlet timer so it will drive the motor directly using battery power. The power circuit has low enough requirements that it could eventually be driven by a solar panel.

19 thoughts on “Automated Chicken Feeder

  1. Hate the hack? Fine. Anything can be made better by adding more power, and making it bigger. So, hack-a-dayers, help me improve this enough to feed grain to two horses. Suggestions?

  2. #4 It seems that you can do essentially the same thi9ng. Upgrade the motor to something beefy, maybe 1/8th HP and upsize the parts. Get a timed switch like he did. Figure out how long it needs to run to dispense enough food for your two beasts and set that as the running interval. If no timer is available set it up so your PC in your house sends a signal over cat5e to a relay between the wall AC and teh motor.(you do have AC in teh barn, right?) Am I missing something?

  3. This site is supposed to be about how you can modify things to suit your needs and bonus points for reusing common items. So on that criteria, it fits on a technical level and a biological level ( feeding the chickies kitchen scraps, they produce delicious eggy-wegs ).

    Stop the bitching.

  4. If it was me – and assuming a horse can eat a 5lb bag of grain in one go (Am I overassuming?) I’d asses the current design.

    It looks like the grain gets caught between the wires, and is dragged along. That means only the bottom edge is used. Hmm….

    What do we do?

    Get a long skinny peice of plastic/plexiglass/whatever. Make it do the width is a bit smaller than the whole. Now heat the thing up realllly hot. And twist it. Put one end in something solid, and twist the other. Voila – sweet high-capacity auger thingy. Same idea – new transporter

  5. #1 and #2 – this is not a site that tells you the latest and greatest way to hack into your friend’s computer and steal his porn. it’s a site for various modifications and cool projects people near and far have put together. this link may be a bit strange, but it seems to me that what you’re looking for is a “h4x0r” news group.

    grow up.

  6. Whatever anyone says, I thought it was a great idea. Yeah, it’s not a hack, but it is using technology to make life a little easier… and who knows, perhaps reading this will inspire someone else, or make them think of something they haven’t before. Good job!

  7. I own a chicken farm and i have to sy this is very similar to whay we use to feed thousands of chickens, now we have ours loop but that doesnt make sence for you to do. If you flaten the wire it would carry more feed, think archimedes screw.

  8. The other day I {tried|{ate|consumed|eaten|ate up|ate on}|{tasted|tried|sampled|savored|savoured}} omega 3 {rich|full|valuable}, free range eggs and they were {really|truly|real|genuinely|very|rattling} {good|pleasant|great|superb|healthy|wholesome|hearty}. Made me {want|wish|desire} to {raise|produce|grow|farm|nurture} chickens of my own to get {more||to a greater extent|more such|more some|more numerous} eggs into my {diet|dieting}. I used to {have|{own|possess}} a {duck|duck’s egg} coop a while ago, now {I’d|I would|I think I } {like|wish|care} to get {started|started out|initiated} {again|over again|once more|once again}.

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