My usual duck routine involves daily measuring out their food ration, same as I do for the dogs. Every evening I measure out the duck kibbles and that’s what they get for the next 24 hours. It’s a schedule and system that works for me and the ducks.
But looking to the future, while it’s not more than a couple of times a year, there are times when we go away. Unlike the dogs who we most often take with us on our trips, the ducks would be staying home. In an effort to make duck care as easy as possible for whomever agrees to the task, I’ve been brain storming options.
I thought, “A feeder that could hold a few day’s rations would be useful. So to ensure that I’d also need a way to keep the sparrows and chipmunks from eating so much.” And thought up a design.
Then went to the net to see if anyone else had come up with similar and how they had done it. Since why reinvent the wheel. And learned this kind of feeder is called a Treadle Feeder.
I found a few folks who had built them for their chickens or their wild bird feeders. None for ducks. But I figured, what the heck, I have enough scrap in my pile to easily make this and I’ll modify it a bit with the width and height of the step lever to try to make it more duck friendly and we’ll see.
And this is what I’ve come up with
It takes a little over a pound of pressure on the step lever to activate, which I hope is enough to keep the chipmunks out but not the ducks.
Now to paint it and test it out. Fingers crossed the Squawk Box Gang approves. And will actually use it!
