Treadle Chicken Feeder

I was starting to tire of our constant battle with the rats in the chicken coop when I came across a post somewhere about a Treadle Chicken Feeder. I think what I initially read was that it could be used outside and keep the feed dry and also keep other birds from eating your chicken feed. I found a couple of places that sold sheetmetal ones, but they were pretty spendy. As I continued to search I found the follow post on the best website ever

http://www.backyardchickens.com/web/viewblog.php?id=56638-building-a-treadle-feeder

If you read much about chickens online then you probably have been to the backyard chickens website before, it is awesome. This gentleman was nice enough to share his plans and instructions so I went about building one on a Saturday. I was in a hurry so, I just used my finish nailer to shoot everything together (probably should have glued as well). It is really amazing how fast things go together that way, and if you don't care that much what it looks like. I did make my feeder taller to hold more feed, by maybe 4" or so. So, far I have been extremely pleased with it, and most of the chickens seem to have figured it out. The rat population has really decreased, not for a lack of trying. The lid that opens to the feed has been gnawed on around all the edges.

Here is a video of the ladies opening it. Sorry kind of a long video.