There are so many reasons to like this unit. First and foremost, once your chicks have been trained on this, the lid will automatically close keeping it safe from rodents at night. What I really like about it is that my chickens can’t scratch the feed and throw it all over the coop and waste all my hard earned money!It is well constructed, mostly assembled and easy to finish up.They have you train your chickens by positioning the bar so that the base plate doesn’t move and the lid stays open the whole day. I’ve heard a lot of people complain that it’s a real pain in the butt to have to remove the screws at night so that you can close the lid. I disagree and if you look at my photos, it will show you how I dealt with it. I simply loosened the screw enough so that the Nut and was nearly to the end of the screw. At night I simply lift the lid and push in both screws so that I can close the lid easily. There is no need to screw and unscrew the lid every night.What I don’t like about it, the top of the lid is flat, which means my girls will roost on it. I’ve seen other brands that have a tented top, and I wish they would come out with a top like that to prevent the chickens from roosting and getting it dirty.There is a minimum weight in order to get the lid open, so if you have small bantams , it’s not likely to work for you. Right now my chicks are at the weight of a small bantam and I’m in my training period. I’m pretty confident in a couple of weeks they will be heavy enough to activate it on its own.Another thing that concerns me is now that I have it in training mode, the lid is held up by the screws. Several of my girls have decided to roost on that. If they try to do that with others eating out of the bin once I’m out of training mode, I’m concerned it might snap their neck. Will have to wait and see what happens. I’ll update if there are serious concerns about this issue. All in all I find it really convenient. I can go away for a week with all the feed that it can hold and be pretty confident will have a supply. I feel that the price is aligned with the quality.When you first set it out, its size and shininess are likely to freak out your chicks. I solved this by sprinkling some mealworms on the base plate and on the top of the feed. They were on it in less than five minutes.My chicks were about seven weeks old when I put this out for training. They are medium sized breed.UPDATE: OK, it’s been a full week in the first part of training mode. I’ve had no issues opening and closing the lid with the way I have positioned the screws. I was worried that the nuts might fall off the end, but so far so good. we’ve had massively heavy rain and winds. And I was worried with all of the wind and rain, the feed couldn’t possibly stay dry. But it did. I’m impressed. There is no scratch feed on the ground. The chickens have stopped even trying to scratch it out, which they did the first day. And at least at the moment. If they get out of the coop before I get to open up their feed, they are able to activate the lid opening. Don’t get me wrong, they can’t activate it all the way because I have it locked. But boy did they try. And I see it going up and down. Part of that may because more than one will get on that plate at the same time. I’m also guessing that once I’m in my next stage, and they will be able to partially open and close the feeder they will learn better than to jump on that door. At least that’s what I’m hoping. I still don’t like that they still jump on the lid. But it is what it is. I am shocked that I still haven’t needed to fill it! It’s saving me a ton on feed costs.

My chickens were wasting as much food as they were eating. I changed to pellets and bought this feeder. No more waste, no more birds flying in for their fill, no more mice. It didn’t take long for them to get used to using the feeder. I’m sure using the pellets helped and the feeder finished the problem. The chickens are happy and mama’s happy.

The feeder has been a vital first step in controlling rats at my urban chicken coop. Previously, I had a hanging feeder and could watch the rats gymnastically climb up onto the feeder. Indeed the rats built an underground nest near the feeder and grew chubby off of the organic layer feed that I give my 2 grown sussexes. I have a certified pesticide-free yard, so rat poison is out.The features of this device that stand out to me are:* Helpful instructions on setup and training;* The training program worked for my chickens;* The chickens don't flinch and now seem to like using the feeder; and* If one bird uses the feeder, the other bird often struts up to join in eating.After the first full week of treadle operation I can tell that I'm using less feed. Though this item is expensive, its probably priced at the true economic cost. The quality is robust (I can wipe it off if it gets wet or really dirty). I wish I would have started my setup with this feeder--maybe the rats wouldn't have gone condo on me.

My chickens loved this feeder box right away. They also like pecking it because it’s metal & makes “music”. They are still training with the open lid but have their meals regularly from it. I add dried meal worm to make it as interesting as possible at meals. So far the feeder has saved food from being dumped or flicked about, making for savings & nothing to draw rodents or roaches. I have hope it will continue to be a success. It is sturdy & strongly made, too.Update: Well, much as I liked it, after 3 weeks, the birds will not even approach it with the up & down “head-chopper-offer” quick moving lid. It’s not the slamming shut metal noise, though that doesn’t help. A slower closing mechanism would be helpful & make me feel better about it, too. So it doesn’t work as an automatic feeder for my flock. I have to leave it up during the day and manually close it at night. Also the crumbles don’t reload the feeder area. I have to shake the whole box forward to reload the feed trough. So… I may have to return it and try something else. Just too expensive to not do it’s job for us.

Does a good job of keeping hens from spilling. And it holds enough for a week for my 6 hens. However, after two weeks the bolts holding one side of the step-plate and flipper came loose. I put them back on and it happened again a few days later. So now I've tightened ALL the bolts and it no longer loosens. BUT it stays open after they step on the plate. If I didn't have it inside my rodent-proof coop, the rats would have a feast.

We were feeding all the wild birds with an open feeder. The chickens learned this quickly and no more wild birds which attracted predators.

I bought this one when I grew my flock to help with feeding. My first feeder was an off brand and had been great no issues. With this feeder I am having to check all nuts and bolts are secure weekly or they go missing. The foot pedal has lost so many screws that the people at the hardware store know my face by heart now. And these are being tightened with a wrench. Otherwise it is a nice feeder but not sure it is worth the hassle of having to replace the bolts every two weeks.

Arrived dented but doesn’t seem to affect functionality. Smaller than expected but will do our coop just fine. Have not yet tried with chickens. Update: After only a few days training my barnyard mix of heritage breeds was able to eat/operate the feeder. Still as good as new months later.

Still in training but chickens getting used to it.

Awesome product. Well built. Completely solved my wild bird problem and rat proof as well. Would have given 5 stars but there should be a way to attach weights to the step during the training process other than duct tape or drilling holes. Had to watch a few YouTube videos on how to add weights as my birds are a bit older and very afraid of the lid noise. A bit pricey but well worth it in my opinion.

Only had it for 10 days, chickens terrified of it at first, went a bit hungry even with lid open so only just half closed it.

It took a week of training the chickens to not be afraid of the opening noise, we love it. It cut down on feed cost and our production is exactly the same. The rats are still around but we are trapping them and l know they will leave anyway because they have lost their food source.