When a representative of Grandpa’s Feedersin New Zealand contacted me about test-driving one of their treadle feeders, I was not inclined to try one initially because I didn’t believe I needed a new feeder. For a few weeks it seemed like the birds were going through more food than they should so I put a video camera on their feeder. Retrieving the feed every night did not seem to help that much either, since the mice were getting the spilled grains.

Fed up of this, we decided to invest in a new British-made treadle feeder but alas, the only one we could find has now had a plastic lid and plastic tread plate fitted! Some of the more recent designs for small flocks have a bucket or pipe, with openings at the bottom for chickens to peck from. The part that shoves the door open has a fatal flaw as well, it is thin for its purpose and quite flimsy. If a chicken is on the base plate at the front and happily feeding and another one tries to come in and eat from the side – it cant.

There are eight separate pivot points on the door/treadle assembly, eight nuts that might fall off, eight rotating bolts that will wear over time and become sloppy.

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. The hens were pretty wary of it on Monday (especially big bum Bella who is a wuss) but hunger got the better of them and they were hopping on and off the treadle (cautiously) quite quicky. We had 12 chickens in that particular coop [we have several coops across the farm] so that should come to 36kg a month.

For the first week of training, two bolts prop the lid open fully and the birds get a feel for standing on the plate and putting their heads into the trough to eat. Update about my neighbour's GF is that it has started to stick open - probably because of dirt and/or feed and/or corrosion affecting the hinges so beware of that after a while (she's had it about 12 - 18 months) Make sure you keep it clean around the moving parts! A simple 1/2″ horizontal lip bent on the front part would have eliminated the need for the wire grid for the vast majority of birds.

Say goodbye to pesky rats, mice and wild birds as they are too light to weigh down the platform and open the feeder. One house has a Grandpa’s Feeder that feeds 6 hens, 6 bantams, and 4-6 pheasants, yes the pheasants have learnt to open the feeder. As for the OP's question, about the only way to ant proof anything is to borrow a trick that was used back in the day; adding some sort of moat with oil. For each major rain that we’ve had, I’ve had to flush out the food and clean out the food container. Not one of them has been hurt, not even when they use it to do acrobatics (yes, the hen inside the grain tray survived!

It was so frustrating as I couldn’t place down traps to catch the rats as my chickens walk all over the floor and I couldn’t risk hurting them.

Once the chickens are used to movement, the bolts are completely removed and full movement of the lid is allowed. We suggest the large chicken feeder is better suited for 12 or more, so you are not required to constantly fill the feeder.

I recently got some new chicks and when they were old enough to integrate into the flock they learned by example in one day!