Deer feeder history

[JayB]

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS "UNOFFICIAL" DEER FEEDERS

I remember in the early 1980's there was a group of engineers at Texas Instruments in Dallas who were "engineering" timers using car batteries and a metal trash can. My Dad came home with a couple that we put on a lease in Rising Star. As a teenager I thought they were the cat's meow !

So for years I called them the TI feeders....the most expensive over engineered feeders around.

I would be curious if anyone else ever saw one or had a family member who had a Texas Instruments Deer Feeder.

Ha....my neighbor and hunting partner way back when was a techy at TI on this project. He built some crazy weird stuff. Sometimes it almost worked. I have not touched base with him in almost 40 years.

[lilavidhunter]

Cox feeders in Livingston

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Those were our 1st Automatic Feeders after the Metal Can feeders.

[Goldeneagle]

The first ones we built were in the late 70s. We used a galvanized trash can. Rebar legs. The feeder was a dump feeder. It had a box that was V shaped on both ends. When the analog timer would go off the box would flip over and dump and then the other end would fill up. The only problem was that if the box didn't latch when it flipped it would drain the whole trash can. It happened a lot of times too. We would get down to Robert Lee on a lot of Fridays to find at least one or several empty feeders.

My first was a dump feeder. Had a clock mechanism from Hobby Lobby with an arm pressed on to trip the funnel. Durn birds would land on it and trip it. Usually stopping the funnel from catching and drain all the corn out.

[Goldeneagle]

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS "UNOFFICIAL" DEER FEEDERS

I remember in the early 1980's there was a group of engineers at Texas Instruments in Dallas who were "engineering" timers using car batteries and a metal trash can. My Dad came home with a couple that we put on a lease in Rising Star. As a teenager I thought they were the cat's meow !

So for years I called them the TI feeders....the most expensive over engineered feeders around.

I would be curious if anyone else ever saw one or had a family member who had a Texas Instruments Deer Feeder.

I knew those guys. I may be wrong, but I think Bo-N-Aro on here was part of that group. I never had one, but when those things spun, it was like a mini gun on an helicopter! You didn't want to be anywhere near one when it went off. I was in a different building than they were. We built a bunch of dump feeders in my group.