Let’s fill the feeder:



Climbing up the ladder:



Whoops:



Put the legs back on:



GET ON THE FEEDER!



Much better:



Is that going to hold?



Looks sturdy enough:



Now let’s fill the feeder:



I’m not sure that’s sturdy enough:



Ah HA! A 2x4!



This’ll hold it:



Now finish filling the feeder:



Mission accomplished, finally!



Getting out of Dodge before anything else happens:



Now the back story:

This is an older feeder that I bought from a fellow who had gotten too old to hunt anymore. Antique would be a good description. The timer was mechanical with pins in it. The ladder was designed to bolt on, but I had just left it in the brush outside the feeder pen rather than attach it. At some point, he had done some “welding” on the leg brackets. I’m not a welding expert, but it looked more like he had melted some metal on the joints. Think big globs like soldering gone very wrong. Anyway, the guy who filled the feeder the first time weighs at least 130 pounds less than I do, and it was wobbly with him on it. I should have gotten the real ladder. But I didn’t want to make the trip back to camp. Obviously I went back to camp.

The reason for the extra support from the 2x4 is the third leg wouldn’t slip on the mount. After the two legs collapsed, I was able to just bend the angled pieces off and slip the pipe legs on what was left. One went on all the way; the other most of the way. But the third one had so much globbed on metal from the “welding” that the leg wouldn’t slip on, so the feeder was just sitting on the third leg. That didn’t strike me as terrible safe with 300 pounds of corn in the feeder. So I found a 2x4 and stuck that under the bracket for the leg. So far, it’s working great though I’m a little skeptical of how it will work when the feeder doesn’t have as much weight in it.

Hope you all are having a wonderful hunting season.

Im not sure I would call that an "exciting" sequence without an actual "fall" photo.

I don't mean to sound unkind, but watching paint dry comes to mind as far as a comparable match on my personal excitement-o-meter...

quote:

Originally posted by Kamo Gari:
I don't mean to sound unkind, but watching paint dry comes to mind as far as a comparable match on my personal excitement-o-meter...

Funny to me LW, one thing though that you probably already know, if the wind blows you're gonna have a down feeder. You need to wire that bad boy down--and somehow anchor/attach that third leg.

How big (small) is the enclosure around that thing? are deer the intended quarry and the wire to keep out hogs and such? Usually have seen much bigger 'enclosures'.....

Why didn't you use the step ladder to climb out? Or you could use some clips and make a gate!

quote:

one thing though that you probably already know, if the wind blows you're gonna have a down feeder. You need to wire that bad boy down--and somehow anchor/attach that third leg.

At the moment, I'm counting on the 250+ pounds of corn to keep the thing in place. That obviously is not a long term fix. But with four weeks of deer season left I was looking for the most expeditious fix. I think I can take a grinder to the bracket and get the globbed on stuff off so the leg will slip on.

quote:

How big (small) is the enclosure around that thing? are deer the intended quarry and the wire to keep out hogs and such? Usually have seen much bigger 'enclosures'.....

This isn't very big. It's a bit oblong. Probably about 7 yards wide and 10 or so long. That's about as big as I could make it. There's only about 4 feet on either side of the enclosure between the pen and the woods. This is built on the end of a clearcut made for seismic testing. Had there been space, I would have made it bigger.

quote:

Why didn't you use the step ladder to climb out?

I will build a gate after the season is over. There's a spot on the front that's only about 4 feet between posts.

LWD

I'm sorry, but knowing LWD as I do, this is frickin' hilarious.

He may have hell with feeder but he can kick the teeth out of an ex-wife's attorney...just sayin.