Futterluke – automatic servo cover for chicken feeder using 110mm pipe

Feed the chicks – keep the rats out

You are looking for a way to feed your beloved chicks but those fat pesky rats keep stealing it at night? After many failed attempts (expensive feeders, various rat traps) I have found a nerdy and cheap way to solve this. Just make the feed unavailable to rats. As a lazy nerd I wanted to have something automatic.

How it works

1. 1. You buy cheap soil pipe from your local hardware store, mount it to a wall and shove the feed in.

2. 1. This project gives you three parts to add a servo-driven door to protect it.

3. 1. You connect the servo to a microcontroller or Raspberry PI and control the door.

4. 1. Profit. (Unless you are a rat.)

I know that it sounds like a lot of work. But the parts can be printed in 4 hours. The pipes are easy to get from your hardware store. You just need to come up with some programming. I am using a Raspberry PI Zero W for my chicken coop anyway so this just added 10 lines of code.

(This project does not work for our US-american friends because I am using the international metric system. Your soil pipes are 4 inches that would not fit. Feel free to take the FreeCAD file and adjust the inlet's diameter.)

What you will need to purchase from your local hardware store for the actual feeder – about 10 - 20€

• HT-Rohr / soil pipe. 110 mm diameter. 1 meter long. This is the main tube where you fill in your feed from the top.

• 2x HT-Bogen / pipe bend / elbow, 110 mm / 67°. These two are stuck together and put to the bottom of the above pipe. It allows the chicks easy access to their food.

• Muffenstopfen / end cap / pipe plug. 110 mm. It gets plugged into the top to prevent weather and rats to access the feed. You just remove it to add feed.

• Rohrschelle / pipe support bracket. . To mount the pipe to a structure like a wooden beam or a wall.

What you will also need

• MG 995 servo. Around 10€ from your electronics retailer.

• some kind of controller to run the servo. Maybe a Raspberry PI Zero W. Or an ESP microcontroller. Either control it via a tiny web server. Or use an astro module to automatically open and close it depending on dusk and dawn.

This project consists of three parts that you need to 3D-print

• Servo Box: put your MG995 servo into it and fix it with two screws. This part needs support at the bottom.

• Inset: this ring-like structure gets inserted into the bottom end of your pipe (to the elbow). The top is a rail to hold the Servo Box. The bottom helps keep the feed in.

• Door: the moving part that is moved in front of the tube by the servo. Insert the servo's horn into the recess and screw it to the servo. Both the horn and the screw come with the servo.

Notes

There is no top cover yet. My feeder is located under a roof so it is not that important. I think I will add one though.

The design was done using FreeCAD. Feel free to play around with it.

The STL files need to be rotated properly. I need to figure out how to change the orientation in FreeCAD.

Feedback is very welcome.