Grandpa's Feeder review: the capacity claim, checked

We have not used one. This review reads what Grandpa’s publishes on its standard and large product pages and in its FAQ, and tests the claims that can be tested with arithmetic. The mechanism itself, the training period and the general bantam problem are covered on our treadle feeder roundup; this page is about whether the specific product delivers what its own numbers promise.

What Grandpa's publishes, both sizes

The capacity claim, checked

This site exists largely because manufacturers’ capacity claims usually do not survive arithmetic. Coop makers are the worst offenders — the space-per-bird page is a catalog of “fits six hens” boxes that fit three. So it is worth saying plainly when a claim does survive, and this one does.

Mississippi State Extension publishes the input: “An average laying hen will consume about 1/4 to 1/3 pound of feed per day depending on weather conditions, size of the bird, and level of productivity.” Run Grandpa’s duty figures against both ends of that range.

Two honest caveats. The arithmetic assumes laying hens; growing birds and a cold snap both push intake up, and the extension figure names weather as a variable. And a hopper that is technically large enough is not the same as one you should run to empty — if you are away for the full ten days, you are betting on the top of the range being right.

The number that actually decides your purchase

Everything above is about feed. The figure that decides whether the feeder works at all is bird weight, and it is the one Grandpa’s buries. It is not on either product page. It is in the FAQ: “A standard chicken feeder requires 500grams/14oz and a large chicken feeder requires 900grams/2lb.”

Read that twice, because the two halves of the standard figure do not agree. 500 g is 17.6 oz, not 14 oz — the published imperial conversion is about a quarter light. Elsewhere in the same FAQ the threshold appears again as “500gms/1lb”, and 500 g is 1.1 lb, so that one is close. If you are weighing a bird to decide, use the gram figure: it is the one that is internally consistent across both models, and the large model’s “900grams/2lb” converts correctly.

That workaround deserves a note of its own, because it is not free. The treadle threshold is the entire pest-exclusion mechanism: Grandpa’s sells it on the basis that rats, mice and wild birds “are too light to open the feeder.” Weighting the plate lowers the force a bird needs, and it lowers the force anything else needs at the same time. It is a legitimate fix for a flock that cannot quite work the lid. It is also a partial surrender of the reason you bought a treadle feeder.

What it does about rats, and what it does not

The pest claim is the reason most people buy this feeder, and it is worth being precise about its scope. Grandpa’s publishes that the “cantilevered lid prevents access by sparrows, rats, mice, and other pests”, on the mechanism that they are too light to open it. A closed lid overnight removes the single largest food source in most runs, which is why our rats and rodents page puts a treadle feeder first among the fixes.

What it does not do is deal with feed that is already on the ground. Chickens feed by scratching and some spillage is inherent; a rat population living on spilled grain around the feeder is not evicted by a lid. Nor does it touch the other two attractions that page names — standing water and a dry space under a raised coop. The feeder closes one door, and it is the biggest one. It is not the whole job.

There is also a gap during training. The published procedure is two weeks, and for those two weeks the lid is propped open by design. If the old open feeder stays in the run alongside it, the rodent problem continues for a fortnight after you have paid to solve it.

Which size, on the numbers

The obvious reading is birds: six or fewer, standard; more than that, large. Two published considerations complicate it.

Feed sitting in the hopper. Our feed storage page puts feed’s shelf life at weeks to a couple of months. A small flock under a large hopper is the case to watch: three hens at the low end of the extension range eat 0.75 lb a day, so 40 lb is more than fifty days of feed standing in an outdoor container. Buying the larger model “to refill less often” with a small flock trades freshness for convenience.

It is not a thing you move. The standard is 15 lb empty and 35 lb full. The large is 23 lb empty and over 60 lb full — this is a fixed installation you site once, and Grandpa’s revised the large model’s published dimensions and weight upward from what we previously recorded, so measure the spot before ordering: 22 by 25 inches of footprint is a lot of run floor.

What Grandpa's does not publish

The documentation is unusually good for this category, which makes the remaining gaps worth naming rather than glossing.

• Steel gauge. A galvanized finish described as “high quality”, over “sturdy metal construction”, is a description rather than a thickness. Nothing on either page lets you compare it with a competitor on material.
• Where it is made now. The FAQ says the feeder was “designed and created in New Zealand in 1994”. Current country of manufacture is not stated.
• What the guarantee covers in practice. The term is a 24-month “100% money-back guarantee against defects in the equipment”, which is longer than most of this category offers. Who pays return shipping is not published.
• Weatherproofing, stated two ways. The FAQ says the feeder is “weather proof” and, separately, “waterproof”. We would still site it under cover, because the issue is not whether the housing survives rain but whether the feed in the trough stays dry.