Dine-a-Chook: trouble-free chicken feeders and waterers

When it comes to pet care products, I’m always willing to pay a little more if it means the functionality of the product is going to save me time, money or effort down the track. I work fulltime and live a busy life, so I aim to keep my pet care routine as efficient as possible. Get the ‘must-dos’ done so there is more time for the ‘quality enhancement’ part of my animals lives. So, when it came time to purchase chicken feeders, I had a good look at my options.

There are lots of chicken feeders out there. Really, you can use any container or bowl as a feeder… if it holds a body or water or pellets, you’ve got yourself a feeder/waterer. You could use an old ice cream container if you were so inclined.

The problem is chicken feed attracts rodents. Rats and mice ADORE chicken feed. Chicken feed is rat crack. We have to keep our bagged feed in a giant, sealed plastic tub because after just ONE night in the shed a rat/mouse chewed a hole in the bag.

I was also turning over my compost pile (aka, chicken poop and bedding pile) and a freaking rat sprang out of that. It was no doubt digging around for food which had spilled into the bedding and been transferred to my compost. God damn opportunists.

While I’m not fearful of rats and mice, I don’t relish the idea of having vermin plaguing my property. I also keep parrots, and rats pose a small risk to their health and safety (think rat bites).

Ick factor aside, the main reason I don’t want vermin is I live in Australia. And Australia has snakes. And not just any snakes, but some of the world’s most venomous. Rates/mice = snake food, and while I can handle having a couple cute mice scampering about, snakes pose a serious threat to the wellbeing of, well, everything with a pulse on my property.

Don’t get me wrong, I love snakes as part of the natural habitat. They play an important role in our ecological diversity. I just don’t plan on setting up a café for them in the backyard.

Here’s where your standard container lets you down. They allow vermin all out access to your chicken feed. I mean sure, you could take the feed in every night – but who wants to do that? It’s a perfectly good waste of an automatic chicken door opener (removing the need to go out to your chickens after dark, or let them out at the crack of dawn).

There’s also a good chance your chickens will scratch the feed out of the container and onto the floor – which results in waste and more filth. There’s also a high to certain chance a chicken will poop in the container. Finally, chickens are fairly blundering creatures and will bowl over the food and water if the container isn’t really solid. While they can eat the food off the floor (although it does result in waste), if they spill their water they are going to be in serious trouble. Chickens need constant access to fresh, clean water – especially in the hot Australian climate.

You can buy lots of different versions of commercial chicken feeders/waters, designed with the specific intent on feeding chickens:

• Treadle feeders – these are heavy so they won’t get knocked over and they protect against rain and pests. However, they are expensive, take up run floor space and well, and don’t come with a waterer option

• Hanging feeder/waterer – these have the benefit of being super cheap and also feeding many chickens at once. They can’t be knocked over. However, it is vulnerable to pests, and if you hang them in an open space (like a run) chances are all the feed will get wet when it rains.

I love the idea of automated feeders and waterers. However, my coop is not connected to electricity or water – the chickens live off the grid. So, attaching a permanent hose or powering some sort of timed feeder wasn’t an option.

What you've all been waiting for...

So, what feeders were affordable, space-efficient, pest proof, weather protected AND would keep enough food fresh to feed my chickens for days?

*Drum roll* the Dine-a-Chook! Dine-a-Chook make feeders and waterers which are a fantastic PVC design. Some chicken-enthusiast called Mr Biggin developed these when he found the commercial feeders lacking. I imagine it was quite the p̶a̶i̶n̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶a̶s̶s̶ process, but what he ended up with is a pretty great, Australian-made, chicken feeder.

You mount them to the side of your run or coop (they provide bolts if you mount them in your coop, but you can just as easily zip-tie them to the run mesh), fill them with food or water and let your chickens have at.

They come in various designs (depending on the size of your flock). The feeder has a hood to keep out rain and pests. The waterer has a tidy little cup and float, so the water stays clean and fresh. They take about 2 seconds to install and while they aren’t the cheapest feeders on the market, they are a happy mid-range option.

I bought two of their most popular kits, which includes a Dine-a-Chook 3.5L Chicken Feeder and a 4L Drinker. They say one of these kits is enough to feed up to 6 chickens, but I got two so that a. more than one chicken can eat at a time and b. I need to refill less often and if we went away for a few days the chickens aren’t going to run out of food/water and die.

My chickens are still young, only 9 weeks old. So at the moment I have their feeders and waterers mounted fairly low in the run to ensure even the smallest in the flock can access nourishment. As they grow, I’ll simply snip my zip ties and move them higher. The higher, the more protected from vermin.

To be honest, I was a little put off by the price of Dine-a-Chook initially. I thought “it’s just PVC, surely I can make my own”. Well, no. No I could not. Once I costed up the PVC, I worked out I’d end up with a much shabbier design for not all that much cheaper. Sometimes, it pays to leave it to the experts. I coughed up the cash and I’m SUPER happy with their products.

I bought, I paid, and they delivered exactly what I’d ordered. Simple, no fuss – fantastic.

I introduced my chickens to these feeders/waterers at about 7 weeks of age. It’s important to make sure when you’re changing anything important out in your chicken’s life, you do so slowly and in a way they have time to adjust. Eg, I ensured the ladies had access to their chick feeder and waterer until I’d seen each and every one of them eat and drink from their new Dine-a-Chook.

#backyardchicken #chickens