I absolutely LOVE having my own chickens to provide farm fresh eggs every morning!  I’ve been raising chickens for years now, and I can’t imagine ever going back to grocery store eggs!!!  I have become so spoiled with the rich flavor of eggs that come straight from the chicken without being processed or bleached.

But let’s face it… anything that can be automated to take one more daily chore off of my list is totally worth it in my book!!  With 3 kids, 6 dogs, dozens of chickens and a husband who works full-time outside of the home, time is a precious commodity in our household!  …And that’s where my automatic chicken feeder comes in!

I had already been storing my chicken feed in a large plastic garbage can with a lid to keep the rodents out and to keep the feed fresh.  Then one day I thought to myself, “What if I could just poke a hole or two in the bottom of this garbage can and attach a tray to catch the feed at the bottom?  Then the tray would automatically fill itself up everyday as the chickens pecked away at it!”

So that is exactly what I did!!!  It worked brilliantly!  No more scooping food out and filling feed buckets everyday!  The chickens have as much food as they want whenever they want it.

As an added bonus, the flip top lid of the garbage can makes it SUPER easy to dump new bags of feed into the top, too!

When cutting the holes through the garbage cans and tray, make sure that you cut them below the top of the walls of the tray.  Otherwise it will just overflow and make a huge mess!

This garbage can is able to hold between 150-200 lbs. of feed which should last my chickens for weeks without a refill!

I LOVE this system!!!  It is soooo much easier than having to refill buckets everyday!  No more straining my back trying to reach down into the garbage cans to scoop feed with one hand while holding a heavy bucket in the other.  No more making multiple trips in and out of the door to transfer the feed.  I know that my chickens always have fresh food no matter what time of day I get out to the coop, and that makes me happy!

And more importantly… my chickens are happy, too!

Have questions or comments?  Email me at [email protected] and I would love to chat with you!  Thanks for checking out my blog!!!