PVC Feeder

[whitetailseeker]

Does anyone have plans or photos of a 4" PVC pipe feeder that they could share as I would like to build a couple on my holidays?

Thanks
Whitetailseeker

[wheelie]

Critters just love feeders. Got 850 pictures in 2 weeks of a family of 4.

[vixenmaster]

Don't glue either cap on. Both coons & tree rats will chew them up. So you will be replacing them.

[RichJ]

Deer are able to get into that Y-Junction? I used to just dump a cpl lbs of corn when I would get to my stand. The prob I find is they were eating all of it in no time or overnite. If I didn't visit the spot daily things would go cold in no time. Is there anyway to limit the amount besides a timed feeder? I have seen a cheaper ($65) timed feeder at Cabelas that is attached to a 5 GAL bucket. The Deer seem to get rather picky in my area and and wont bother to hit the feed until its well after hours. That makes for nice pictures but not carbon in the air.

[vixenmaster]

I built mine out of 4" PVC & painted it gray, let it sit several days to let stink dissapate. With the 3 or 4" pvc deer have no problem getting the corn or soybeans/meal/ Mine is 4 1/2' tall & will hold a good amount of feed. The problem i have found is the coons & tree rats drag the corn out in paw fulls til they have a 10 or 15 lb pile on the ground & are greedy pests!

[vixenmaster]

Of couse you can make this type of feeder any length you want but i am stretched up high enuff filling a 4 1/2' one. There is a feeder on the market that has a round plate that feed falls onto & its very hard fer coons to get up to it. Of course tree rats can jump 4 or 5 ' in the air so they can make it. They don't eat near as much as the coon family reunion that comes to visit every nite!

[wabi]

I have used feeders for several years.
I have used timed feeders, both light activated (daylight & dusk cycles) and timed feeders.
I have made several PVC feeders using 4" & 6" PVC. Some elaborate setups with Ys, elbows, reducers, etc. - and some simple setups like the one in the link Bob posted.

The timed feeders always fail! Sometimes it's the activation circuit, sometimes it's the motor, but one full season's life is stretching the life of one. The maximum service I got from one was 2 1/2 seasons (with many repairs), and the minimum was about a week.
The PVC feeders work better, the elaborate setups are both unnecessary and prone to failure (either it clogs, gets wet inside, or you have to take it down and dump dead squirrels out ). The simple straight pipe works fine, but can require filling very frequently! I've had deer & other critters empty a 4" x 5' feeder overnight many times!

Last year I decided to build something better!
I had an old 30gal steel barrel, so it became the basic component. I bought a bag of ready-to-use mortar mix, tipped the barrel to a 45° angle and poured a sloped base in it to direct the corn to one side and add weight. I also put several long screws through the metal barrel into the wet mortar mix so it couldn't move once dried. I used the rest of the mortar mix to fill the recess in the lid. This added weight and made latching it down unnecessary.
After the mortar was dry I took a 2" hole saw and drilled 2 holes on the bottom so the slope of the bottom would direct the corn out of the holes.
It is heavy (probably 60 - 80#) enough to remain where I put it! Deer can't push it over and raccoons can't get the weighted lid off! It holds 100# of corn which lasts for at least a week!
The down side is that it required a vehicle to transport it to location (I have the landowner's tractors available to me, so that was no problem in my case). An ATV would work well, too.
Had it out & filled until I got sick in December, and never had any problem with it! It will be filled again soon (I'll start filling it in mid-July) and hopefully will provide me with many hours of enjoyment watching wildlife and even letting me pick a couple deer come season to fill my freezer & pantry in preparation for a long winter.

(note the squirrel on the cedar tree in the pic - it also makes a good place to get a few squirrels to eat if you like them )

feeder.JPG

[whitetailseeker]

Thanks for the replies,I will experiment with these ideas and see what I can come up with.I was thinking of putting a 2" Y reducer at the bottom and have it face down and let the corn pile up to stop the flow.

Whitetailseeker

[wabi]

Thanks for the replies,I will experiment with these ideas and see what I can come up with.I was thinking of putting a 2" Y reducer at the bottom and have it face down and let the corn pile up to stop the flow.

Whitetailseeker

Tried that!
Unless you want to clean dead squirrels out of the feeder I wouldn't recommend it.
Checked the feeder one day and nothing was coming out. I kicked it and it had corn inside. Took it loose from the tree thinking it had drawn moisture and clogged. Took the top cap off, bumped it on the ground to get the corn out, and two squirrels came out! One dead and one very sick looking squirrel and a little corn were inside it. I suppose the squirrels pushed their way in past the corn then were trapped inside??????
That just happens to be the same day the bottom got cut off at a 45° angle and shoved in the ground like it shows in the video Bob posted.

[whitetailseeker]

Thanks Wabi for the heads up.

Guess I'll scrap that idea and stick with tried and true plans.

Whitetailseeker

[bigbuckonly1]

Mine is a really simple pvc gravity feed deer feeder, on these the corn does not just pile up on the ground, the deer eat it out of the feeder, they really love it here around my feeding area. See picture. http://i840.photobucket.com/albums/zz33 ... 88x816.jpg