Best bang for your buck if your deer will eat it. Feeder cost $50. 1,440lbs of cottonseed was $120. $160-$220 per ton depending on mill and time of year.

Awesome. I’m definitely gonna try this next year. How do you find the gins? Just google em?

IMO your feed ports look a bit to high in the second post..what height are they? With them turned up a younger deer will have a difficult time eating out of the feeder. Over time they will wear a depression after rains on the ground under each port. That will make it even a bit more difficult. Do you have a drain in the bottom of each port to let rainfall drain out? How much clearance do you have between the port and the legs of the feeders? Like posted above I would never fill a feed completely full to start. If the deer have never been fed protein I would put a 50 lb bag of corn in the feeder the first time till I got deer eating out of it. Then mix in a bag of corn and protein. When they eat that then put in a couple of bags of protein. All Seasons sells a funnel with 4" opening for making your own protein feeders. They also sell a protein head with spouts to make your own feeder. Boss Buck sells the funnel with downspout/ports to make your own feeder also. I have started with one 300# feeder with they idea that over time as the consumption goes up to add another feeder(s) to same location. I never want more than 10 deer eating per feeder if I can help. I want the deer eating as much as they want when they want it. So far I have not had to add any extra feeders. When I bought my feeders I put dug each leg down so the feed ports were only 32"-33" of the ground, not 37"-38". Deer range in body size a lot around the state. I bought J&N Feeders at a local feed store since they were well made and all galvanized. They were priced very competitive at the time. IIRC I paid $230/feeder for a 300# capacity(corn weight). They are 5.5 yrs old now and still look in really good shape.

My feed ports are 3 foot 6 of the ground, that's about what the commercial feeders are, i was trying to keep it high enough to keep hogs and young deer out. I put a 50# bag of corn in the bottom and mixed a bag of corn with a bag of protein and put that on top of the corn.

I use the bunk feeders. But I’m here every day and hand bag it. I only feed my house pasture of my home ranch. Leasers feed other ranches. Currently feeding 350# of antlermax and 2 bales of alfalfa each day. If it doesn’t rain I’ll be feeding more soon.

Hand feeding each day gets me out in the field with them and gets them used to seeing me. It also helps me know exactly how much they’re eating.

In the above post, how many lbs. would you estimate are in this comtainer ? We can buy it locally in 50 lb. bags?? Curious how much space 50 lb. would take up.