Make it Monday - Feed Trough

So I'm going to try something new in an effort to keep things more organized on here - Mondays will be Make it Mondays with DIYs. Wednesdays will be Wacky Wednesdays and that'll be for all the random stuff I want to post (plus there was a book of that title that I loved when I was a kid.) And Fridays will be Frugal Fridays with money saving tips and ideas. I might not do all three each week but we will see what I can do!

Today's Make it Monday post is about the little goat feed trough we made a couple weeks ago. You could modify it and use something similar for bigger goats, sheep, llamas, a pack of dogs if you're into feeding packs of dogs... basically any smaller animal. If you got a really huge piece of pipe you could make one big enough for cows. 

Since the goat population explosion we needed something bigger than one pan to feed them all in. We were using several plastic dog bowls as a temporary solution but the bowls were getting busted up and it wasn't at all convenient. 

We went to TSC and they had a little goat feeder that hung on a wall, but it was $14.95 and I knew there had to be a cheaper way to handle this! Plus I knew what kind of feeders my dad had built for their sheep, using angle iron and PVC pipe, I figured we could do something close with scrap wood and PVC. So off we went to Lowes.


At Lowes we got a 2' piece of 4" pipe like this for half of what the goat feeder cost. A couple days later we started working on putting the feeder together.

First, we cut the pipe in half lengthwise. You could use a hacksaw, we did it on the tablesaw. 

                                                                           

 This will give you a total of 4 feet of trough space, which is 10 inches more than the TSC model!

Then, you cut 3 2X2's to 4 feet. J used the vise to hold the 2X2 steady while we placed one piece of pipe on top and screwed it down to the board. Try to place the screws at the very edge and don't use many, to lessen the chances of the animals biting a screw while they're eating. I can't imagine that would do any good for their teeth! Once you get one half of the pipe down, repeat with the other half.

One piece of pipe secured

The next one is in place now

Turn the pipe onto it's "side" and repeat with another board, and then repeat again on the opposite "side" so you have 3 boards attached around the bottom of the pipe. Its probably a little overkill, but we had plenty of wood and wanted it to be sturdy since the goats will invariably stand on it.

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Attaching the second board

Now apparently I got tired of taking pictures at this point! What you want to do now is cut 2 more boards, approximately 1-2" (depending on how heavy-duty you want this to be) and about 5-6" wide and as long as you want your feeder tall. This is where some sturdy pallet boards come in handy! We cut ours about 18" long and mounted the feeder at about 15". (They are the boards lying on the workbench in the picture above.) Screw through the board into the 2X2 ends, and add a couple little braces if you have them and feel like it needs it.

Here is the finished feeder outside in the snow! Obviously this is a top-heavy feeder, but we weren't planning on leaving it out here. We put it in the barn along a wall and attached it with some brackets that we had. Now it even stands up to fat Oreo standing in it!

Finished feeder - total cost: $7.60

I will try and update this later with a picture of the goats using it! I would go out now and get one but I really hate getting near the goats without any food because they scream at me.