Why use five separate parts when a single treadle bar could have been bent out of steel or aluminum flat bar? It’s like a cereal box all the smaller bits are at the bottom of the packet and you get them last or its just dust! There is no heavy counterweight and no spring, and the mechanism itself is fairly balanced so there is no resistance to prevent a mouse or rat from simply pushing the lid up and climbing in. The way the food storage is setup does not allow for gravity to constantly have the opening filled with food.

There is a training period that allows the birds to become accustomed to the operation of the feeder, but it requires no effort on the part of the chicken-keeper. A thin sheet metal strip like this would be fine if it was under tension but under compression it is going to flex and snap or allow the door to bind. Retrieving the feed every night did not seem to help that much either, since the mice were getting the spilled grains.

Since we have very cold winters where I live, I taped a plastic mat to the step so it won't be so cold for them to step on the metal plate. For very light birds or bantams which are too light for the feeder, it is very easy to adjust the feeder by putting a small weight on the tread plate. The lower section where the lid comes down also has a slight raise, not enough to shed the water of a heavy rain. There are comprehensive instructions supplied on the underside of the lid of the feeder (which is good for me as I normally lose paper instructions) and provide guidance on how to get your hens used to using the feeder over the course of a few weeks and some different settings.

Sometimes had to adjust them for light birds, but even our bantams were able to figure how to open them to eat by walking along the step until it opened for them.It has solved two big problems I was having - 1) wild birds getting into their feed and spoiling it, 2) rain/snow getting feed wet and spoiling it. The part that shoves the door open has a fatal flaw as well, it is thin for its purpose and quite flimsy.

This feeder took care of spilled feed and helped get rid of the rodents that were scavenging feed every night. Bono originally waited until other hens were on the treadle and stepped up beside them, but eventually he got the hang of opening it by himself. The second week, the bolts are lowered a notch so that the plate and lid move slightly when the plate is stepped on. This video is the first impressions video – I’ll add another post and video after a few weeks, when it’s a bit more lived in and our Marsh Daisies have had their wicked way with it. We had 12 chickens in that particular coop [we have several coops across the farm] so that should come to 36kg a month.I suppose you could come up with some sort of oil filled narrow moat but think of the litter getting kicked into it or just dust. I installed the Automatic Chicken Feeder in the training mode being sure to close it each night and open it in the morning.