How pleasant it is to enjoy the sounds of nature and listen to the lively twitter of the feathered family in your suburban area. To attract these little helpers to the site, who destroy all kinds of pests, you should prepare for them a small "gift" - a feeder. Winter is a real test for birds. Under a layer of snow, it is quite difficult for them to find food to maintain vitality. The feeder will be a salvation for birds in the winter months, when they are forced to flee not only from frost, but also hunger. There are many options for how to make a feeder with your own hands, allowing you to make original designs from improvised materials.
What you need to remember when making any feeder?
The range of ready-made feeders is wide enough. But still it’s much more interesting to turn on the imagination and build an original and cute design from unnecessary materials at hand. In addition, the whole family can be involved in a useful and exciting activity.
No matter what design the product will have, and what will act as the material of manufacture, a good bird feeder should have:
- A roof that helps protect the feed from precipitation. Wet soaked in snow or rain quickly becomes unfit for consumption.
- A wide opening that allows the bird to freely enter the feeder and get out of it.
- Manufacturing material resistant to high humidity and temperature extremes, the use of which will create a feeding trough ready to serve more than one season.
Thus, you are not limited only to wooden building materials, in fact, the feeder can be made from anything.
And also, you can build a house for squirrels. Read about it: //diz-cafe.com/postroiki/domik-dlya-belki-svoimi-rukami.html
Making a classic tree feeder
Wooden bird feeders in the form of miniature houses are made of boards and moisture-proof plywood. The presented option refers to a variety of hopper feeders in which the food enters the bird "canteen" in portions, which greatly facilitates the owner's supervision of birds.
Instead of moisture-proof plywood, you can use plexiglass, for fixing which in the side walls you should cut grooves with a depth of 4 mm using a milling machine. The optimal size of the side wall made of plexiglas will be 160x260 mm. To fix the side panels to the end of the walls, you can also use screws.
To connect the details of a bird feeder made of wood, you can use both wooden piping and glue, as well as ordinary screws. The corners of the product must be sanded. To equip the perch, a round bar (el. 8) is used, which is attached to the edges of the side in drilled 10 mm holes.
Now you can mount the roof. For this, the left half of the roof is firmly fixed to the side walls. The right half of the roof and the ridge are separately fastened together. Only after that, with the help of furniture hinges, both halves of the roof are assembled into a single structure. The gap formed in the assembled product between plexiglass and the bottom of the structure allows you to adjust the feed: one feed of the feeder may last for 2-3 weeks. Thanks to the transparency of plexiglass, it is easy to observe the amount of food for birds.
Beautiful and functional design is almost ready. As a finishing touch, the product can be coated with a layer of drying oil or painted.
Other original ideas
There are many variations on the manufacture of hanging “dining rooms” for birds. The most common and easy to create option for building a feeder is from a plastic bottle or a package of juice.
In the upper part of the package, holes are cut for threading the fishing line or cord. The length of the fastener should be 25-40 cm. On both sides of the container, with the help of scissors or a knife, two spacious entrances are made opposite each other, allowing the birds to freely enjoy the meal. The manufacture of a simple design takes no more than 15-20 minutes. The finished product is easily fixed with a cord in a convenient place near the house and is filled with your favorite bird treats.
Here are some more examples of original designs:
When thinking about how to build a bird feeder, it’s not at all necessary to “reinvent the wheel”. It is enough to recall examples of arranging functional constructions familiar from childhood and, having shown a little imagination, create an interesting suspended “dining room” that will please the family with an attractive appearance, and feathered guests with delicious treats.