Automatic spinner feeder

[Benthejockey]

Just a quickie for the PW brains to ponder. Has anyone ever made their own auto spinner feeder? The cheapest I can find are 50 quid! For what is effectively a motor on a timer! I fancy having a go myself if A its economically viable and B its not hugely complicated and time consuming. 

[Walker570]

Yes, we had a couple some 25yrs or more ago and found that for a medium shoot putting 6 00 to 800 birds down they where a waste of corn.  It needed many more birds to cope with even the lowest setting.   If you into three or four thousand birds then I think they might work and add to that the ease with which birds can pick the food and then clear off, then spring peckers or even trays are a better bet as it keeps birds active looking for and extracting food.  

[Benthejockey]

Obviously I'm big time here Nev 😉 I just thought it might be handy to feed the margins on a few ponds I cant get to every day.

[Walker570]

Hah!  Now your telling me what for.  I think for that purpose they might just work as ducks like to shovel.

I don't have the units we used now as you could have had them with pleasure.  A friend went to great lengths to have the spinners cast in ally but I think if you can find a timer on the web all you need is a circular piece of 16 gauge with some vanes pop rivetted on,  bolted to a 12 volt motor shaft.  It only needs to kick in for a second or two to spread a lot of feed.  An old circular saw blade would work brill.

I was familiar with them out in Texas on the many ranches I visited. They fed their whitetail 24/7 on whole maize and we used to sit on the feeders and flatten any hogs that turned up.

The animals/birds knew the sound of that spinner going off and just a few seconds would spread a bucketfull over a 20yrds radius.  I might have a 12v motor lying around somewhere, I will have a look.

Edited August 19, 2019 by Walker570

[Stimo22]

We have a total of 8 auto feeders on our two lakes, they originally came from USA and are called Kenco feeders. Most auto feeders spin horizontal but these work vertically so can put a line along the shallows accurately. They only use a small 12v motor and have a timer.  Can supply  you the motor details and a photo when I get on computer if you need them.

[rimfire4969]

We use 4 auto feeders on our shoot. You can adjust them to spin from once to 8 times a day, from 1 second to 10 seconds per spin. So you should have no problem getting the right amount of feed out. We use ours with split maize and we have fitted small beepers to ours so when they spin they also beep and the birds come running. We find that they help to hold the birds where we want them.

[Stimo22]

Hi Ben

Back fro hols, pictures of feeders we use, Kenco Pc-44s, directional feeders. The motor used is a Mabuchi FC280 pt long shaft motor working on a 12volt battery. The impeller is a rubber straight impeller which we got from USA, but we are looking for an alternative. If you search the web you should be able to find some diagrams. If you try to make your own the timers on ours work on the light available so go of in the morning and evening, but other timers would work.