Chickens are messy. They poop constantly. They throw their food everywhere. They play in gardens and straw piles not meant for their entertainment. And usually do so joyfully.
It’s kind of like a love/hate thing. At least it is for me. Love the chickens. Usually dislike the mess.
A couple months ago I was contacted by a nice couple in California that had invented, designed and begun producing a new product to deal with one of the chicken mess problems: feed waste. They came up with the idea of a gravity fed metal feeder with small rectangular openings along the front to keep their own hens from billing out so much food.
Since I know about messy chickens, I was intrigued.
Once I got the feeder in the mail, I rushed out and set it up on some concrete blocks in my chicken run and let the girls test drive it for me.
After a little trial and error in setting up the TUFF feeder (The Ultimate Fowl Feeder), I learned that it needs to be level to work properly. It also needs to be about shoulder height with the chickens. Once those little glitches were out of the way, the girls seemed to like it, and their food waste did indeed go down. A win/win for both of us.
I’m using this feeder exclusively now. One of the things I personally love about it is that I can fill it full and it will last my flock of 9 hens about two weeks before I have to re-fill it. This sure beats the fill-it-daily routine I was doing before.
I also really love that folks like us make these feeders: just normal people that happen to also love chickens. They have a flock of their own and problem solved a solution to something they experience in every day life as a chicken raiser.
There’s something about all this that appeals to the inventor-wanna-be inside me. And something in me that identifies with the chicken lover in them.
Because of that, I wanted to tell you all about them. They’re pretty new on the chicken product scene and need a shout out for people to find out about them. They have a great product and I’ve been pleased with it. If you want to know more, please go to their Backyard Chick website and look around. You can also contact them to ask them more questions (as well as stop by their Backyard Chick Facebook fan page and say hi).
And in interest of full disclosure, no money has changed hands between us. They haven’t paid for this shout out. I did, however, receive a feeder from them to try out.
And I’m so happy that I have it. I really like it. And I think you might to.
