Homemade feeder spinners.....

[Reloader]

I had a pile of old feeders laying around that didn't work for various reasons, so got the idea to pull them apart and make a couple of my own.  I had a piece of 4" pvc drain line on hand for the body and stopped by HD to pick up some square end caps.  I bought a couple digital timers on-line for $19 shipped each.  I robbed the motors, funnels, and spin plates from a couple old feeders and went at it. Prob have about $25 tied up in each. 

[dirt road ninja]

How'd you mount the timer?

[Reloader]

DRN, The timers I bought are nearly the size of a 6v battery, so i just made my wires long enough that when I slide off the bottom cap, the battery and timer slide out.  You have to obviously catch the battery, but the timer is so light it doesn't hurt to just let it hang.  The 4" pvc has plenty room to slide everything back in easily.

Here's a run down of how I made them:

Drilled a 1/2" hole in the center of one end cap and two small holes for the mounting screws for the motor. Wired the timer to the motor and installed alligator clips for the battery. Cut the PVC long enough to have alittle room for the motor, timer, and battery stacked. Slipped the motor end cap on the PVC, then lined up an L bracket on each side. Drilled two holes in each bracket to evenly space holes in the end cap. Drilled pilot holes through the end cap and main body pipe and used 1/2" long sheet metal screws to hold it all together(brackets, end cap, and main body pvc). Drilled one pilot hole through the bottom end cap and installed a screw to hold it on. Painted with $1 can of matte black.

I still have a few feeders laying around to do more if I like them. If I didn't have the old feeders, I'd be out alittle for the motor and spin plate alone, the rest is easy to make. You can make the funnel with 2" PVC and two small L brackets.

have a good one,

Reloader

[hookedspur]

 

[gotcha]

McGuyvered them.

[stone road turkey calls]

nice job

[tra_cline]

anyway you could do one step by step with pics? I got tons of busted up feeders bears have beat to death! and have truck full of pvc (plumber). they looks great,

[jde]

Like the way you think.

[mountman62]

Ronnie, how you gonna make em bear proof, anybody got that figured out, let me know

[Reloader]

You gotta hang em to keep the bears from getting to it.  I did have a varmint cage on one that kept a bear from tearing it up, so that may work.   That feeder was a 55gal drum with 4 rigid 2" pipes for legs(legs buried maybe 4-6" in the dirt).  The varmint cage was heavy duty steel mesh.  I had pics of him trying to get to the spinner, but he gave up and I guess the feeder was heavy enough that he couldn't flip it.

They bent 3 spinners on our place last year and turned one tripod feeder over.  Thankfully I don't have a single bear pic on cam this year.  They would just walk up and bend the spinner over draining the entire feeder.

Hanging a feeder higher than they can reach is pretty easy if you have enough trees around. Keeps the coons from messing with the spinners as well.  I've done it many different ways.  Sometimes I just throw a weight over a big limb with a rod and reel, then pull a rope over the limb with the fishing line.  I tie a good pulley on the rope, then run rope or cable for the feeder through the pulley.  You pull the main rope up until the pulley is at the height you want.  There's two ways to lift the heavy feeder at this point. The cheap way and if you have an atv with a winch, is to tie a weight or stick to the feeder end of the rope and pull the rope up to where you'd like the feeder to be. Tie a loop in the rope near the atv winch while you have the atv next to the tree you intend to tie the main rope off too.  At this point hook the winch to the loop and winch out til your stick or weight comes back down.  Tie the feeder on where the stick/weight was and fill er up.  Then winch it up to the pulley and tie the loose end past the winch hook to the tree or an eye loop you've screwed in the tree and let the winch off til the winch cable is loose and unhook the winch from the loop.  When you need to let it down, just drive up and hook the winch to the loop again and pull it in just enough to get the rope untied from the tree and let out on the winch til the feeder gets back down.

Another easy way is to buy a cheap hand crank boat winch and find a cut off or short piece of 3"+ angle iron.  Drill holes for the winch on one side of the angle iron and attaché the hand winch.  Then drill a couple holes in the other side of the angle iron for some lag bolts to go into the side of a tree.  Lag bolt the winch to the tree and you're set.

If there are no limbs big enough or in the right spot for the fishing pole trick, just find two trees that you can tie a line to.  Use a tall ladder or climbing stand and tie one end of rope to one tree up high, come down the rope half the distance to the other tree and tie on your pulley.  Run your feeder rope through the pulley, then climb the other tree and tie off the other end of the main rope.  Now you have a pulley ½ way between two trees and your ready to winch up the feeder.

To make a large hanging feeder you can just drill a hole in each side of a barrel near the top of the barrel.  Weld two pieces of steel about a foot or so long two the ends of a piece of steel a couple inches wider than the barrel.  Slide a bolt through the hole in the barrel and shim out with washers so you can get the lid off.  Tie your feeder rope to the center of your hanger and get er done.  I've used only ropes and a 2x4 to make a hanger before and it worked fine(you use eye bolts on the barrel).  Steel is better but a 2x4 will work in a pinch.

I use 5 gal buckets with lids as well.  Use the fishing pole trick and pull them way up in a tree.  Deer will come to a feeder way up in a tree much easier than a tripod feeder.  I put cams out on  feeders and it's funny how I'll get a few bucks on cams at tripod feeders, but get many more bucks on cam at the feeders pulled high in trees.  I have two cams right now about 300yds apart, one a tripod and one a bucket way up in a tree.  I have several rack bucks on the high bucket feeder, but just dinks and does at the tripod.

[drenalinld]

I've never tied feeders up high but definitely get way more pics of older bucks just putting corn on the ground as opposed to a feeder hung head high or a tripod feeder.

[Reloader]

I've never tied feeders up high but definitely get way more pics of older bucks just putting corn on the ground as opposed to a feeder hung head high or a tripod feeder.

It makes a huge difference.  A great example is on some Delta land we hunt.  I put a camera on a tripod feeder one year to see what was in the area.  Never had a pic one of a big buck, yet saw a 140 and 130 in the same day while bow hunting.  To test the theory, the next year I put out a cam on the same feeder and put another cam 60yds away from it.  I poured corn on the ground at the second cam about every two weeks or so.  I had 21 bucks on cam that season and the vast majority were from the second cam.  I think I had 2 cull bucks and some dinks on the tripod.  Moved over to a scrape line about 100yards from that second cam and put the gig on a nice buck