Home-Built Nipple Feeder

Home-Built Nipple Feeder LIVESTOCK Feeding Equipment 27-2-28 Joyanne Brown of Vimy, Alberta was tired of getting "attacked" by her 13 orphan lambs every time she went to feed them their milk with a traditional upright nipple feeder pail. Her husband, Lyle, solved her problem by putting together nipple feeders out of 5-gal. plastic containers with screw lids. Lyle cut a 4 by 9-in. opening along one side of the container (which becomes the top of the horizontal feeder) to provide an opening big enough to pour milk into, but small enough to keep the lambs from jumping in. He then drilled four holes (spaced 3 in. apart) along each side of the container and installed self-sealing nipples (replacement nipples for commercial nipple pails). Plastic tubing runs from the nipples to the bottom of the container, serving as straws to allow the lambs to get all of the milk. He cut out 4 by 4-in. blocks of wood to cradle each end of the pail. He wrapped each block with a metal strap and then tied the blocks to the feeder by running a tarp strap around each end of the feeder and through the metal straps on the blocks. "It's easy to unhook the tarp strap when you need to wash out the feeder," Joyanne explains. "I feed three times a day, but only wash the unit every second day because the milk doesn't sour in our unheated barn. I also mix in one drop of formaldehyde for every litre of milk fed. This prevents bacteria from growing, but doesn't hurt the lambs." Lyle made two of the feeders, so they have room for 16 lambs. Joyanne fills the feeders with milk first, and then releases the lambs from their pen so she can stay clear of the feeding frenzy. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Lyle and Joyanne Brown, RR1, Vimy, Alberta, Canada T0G 2J0 (ph/fax 780 961-3324; E-mail: lyjo11@hotmail.com).

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