Home made deer feeders

[jigstick44]

Has anyone here tried and had any success with making a home made deer feeder? I am looking at making a couple this year out of 55 gallon plastic barrels and was wondering if any of you out there has tried to do the same.

[tealitup]

I tried last year; problem being bears in my area. Crushed and demolished a 55 gal steel drum. Ripped the feeder off and ate over 300 pounds of feed.

So, where are you planning on placing the feeder. If you have time talk to BigLakeBass about food plots.

[Mark Christianson]

Here is the feeder I have at home. It holds over 500 lbs of corn. I dont have any measurements on it, but I sure could go grab some data points if anyone is interested. Pretty cheap to build really. I used all cull lumber to build it.

[BLACKJACK]

I made one out of a 55 gallon drum a couple years ago, I saw the prototype in a lumber yard, pretty easy.

I made a 3x4 foot platform about 2 foot off the ground using 4x4 corner posts connected with 2x6's, then put some decking across the top. At the bottom of your plastic barrel, on the sides, cut two 2x3 inch holes, on opposite sides. Attach your barrel to the platform with pipe strapping, the stuff they hang pipes with that has lots of holes in it, use small lags into the platform and plastic barrel. Add corn thru the big bung, if you're patient it doesn't take long to dump in a couple of 50 pound bags of shelled corn.

I never got around to it, but I had thought about using 2x4's to make a frame that the deer had to reach their head thru to get to the corn, with the theory that the bucks would knock off their horns. I think it would work.

I built this and used it for a couple of years and then stopped because of concerns about deer feeding and CWD.

[jigstick44]

I had about the same idea in mind but I thought about putting a cone of some sort in the bottom of the barrel to keep the corn flowing to the holes.

[jlm]

There is a big push to outlaw any recreational feeding in MN at this point in time. I am not sure of that status on this right now, anyone else hear for sure? Might want to make sure before any plans to build your feeder. Just FYI!

[BLACKJACK]

A cone at the bottome would be good but then you have to cut the top off the barrel and then water and other critters can get in. At the end of the feeding season you'll just end up with about 5 gallons of corn in your barrel, shake it a little or tip it over to empty it. Not that much corn wasted.

[Shwangman]

I'm in the process of building one in my garage using a plastic 55 gallon barrel, cutting out slots on both sides of the barrel and building a bunk out of 2 x 4's and sliding it throught and then spraying the opening's with some of that spray foam because I got the holes a little to big and planning on dumping some corn in to see how it works. I do like the picture of the feeder from the other poster but I thought I would just whip something up and see how it goes.

[BLACKJACK]

If the holes in your 55 gal drum got a little too big just make a 7"x7" three sided box/trough around the holes to contain the corn.

[gorrilla]

They can just lick the TB and CWD off the edges of those...