Heavy duty feeder on skids

[hoythitman]

Well, here we are again. I did a heavy duty protein feeder tube a few months ago. Now the elk have resorted to ripping apart my corn feeders and tipping them over. I plan on doing two of these feeders. One is way back off of the trail and I have to walk the bags of corn in, going to leave it a 55 gallon drum but build it on a 2x2" 3/16" angle iron frame, legs and skids 2x2" 3/16" square tube. The "varmint" cage, has to be elk proof so it will be framed with 1x1" angle 1/8" with 4ga 2x4" slot horse panel. Still working on how I will anchor it so they cant tip it over. The second will be same frame and legs but I will use some 3/16" plate and make a hopper that will hold around 600-800 lbs of corn.

So far I cut the angle iron at 45's made a box with an inside opening of 23.5". The barrel is right at 23". Welded it all together, then welded the barrel to the frame. The corners are open so I will have to use pieces of scrap to close the corners off top keep coon hands out of it.

Supply list.

16' piece of 2x2" 3/16" angle
36' of 2x2 3/16" square tube
20' of 1x1 1/8" angle iron
1 horse panel to cut up and make cage out of
1 barrel, mine was an old tomato paste barrel I picked up at a local feed store for $25

I will post up pictures as I go.

[savin yours]

In for the build

[Pacman]

Following

[RascalArms]

In

[stxslayer]

We need pictures or it didn't happen. Lol

[hoythitman]

Sorry, I got carried away. But you get the idea, 2x2 angle iron frame around the barrel, barrel welded to frame. Cut the legs (37" long) at 10 degrees and welded to the bottom of the barrel frame. Bottom of legs were cut at 10 to match so the skids would be level. Skids are 5' long, cut at 15 degrees, flipped the small piece over so the front and back of the skids are 30 degree ends. Welded to the bottom of the legs. Tomorrow I will add 2 braces between the skids and build the cage.

[hoythitman]

I'm 5'10" and Its perfect height to just reach up and fill it. No ladder or step needed.

[Mongo45]

Building a few very similar, started the first one over thanksgiving. Was originally going the skid design like the all season with 2.5" pipe on bottom but now I'm thinking plate, still not sure... Welded a 1" pipe guide for 3/4" rebar t head stakes for anti tip protection (cows)... Yours look good man.

[stxslayer]

Awesome that looks heavy duty. Thanks for the pics.

[hoythitman]

Changed up the plan a little. Started thinking about it, 2x4 holes will let squirrels in. Decided to just build a super heavy duty "cage" to keep elk and pigs out, and put a standard varmint cage inside of it to keep coons and squirrels out.

Cut the side braces at 10 degrees to match the angle of the legs.



Cut the flat braces for in-between the legs on the sides, to complete the bottom frame of the cage.



Welded on 1x1 angle to the b bottom to give me something to weld to on the bottom.



Drilled the hole in the barrel, mounted the motor assembly and started on the elk cage.



No elk getting through that.

[hoythitman]

Here it is all set up, put the varmint cage inside of the elk cage. lol. Hooked it up the the four wheeler and drug it through 400 yards of mud and rocks and worked great. Way easier to move around that a standard tripod feeder.

[fishstix]

Wow. That is stout.

[hoythitman]

Wow. That is stout.

It is, I should have weighed it but I didn't have time. Needed to get it feeding ASAP since I haven't had a feeder going since a few days before thanksgiving.

[savin yours]

Very nice!

[Kmart49]

How are you going to protect it from being knocked over? Do y'all have cattle and horses to deal with or just elk? lol