Anybody used these? It appears to be a plunger solenoid put in a housing made to function with corn. http://www.thecornbank.com/buy-now.html

Looks like a great idea.

Why not get an inertia spinner plate and be done with it?

We have those on almost all of our 25 feeders and they help a lot. Especially help with wind blown corn. Although an industrious coon(aren't they all) can still jack with em. They are not fool proof unless maybe we don't have em adjusted just right or they are faulty. Also theres a couple different types so maybe ones better than the other...
Never heard of the cornbank but certainly may work. Not cheap and would they work with a funnel? I always hate to add one more moving part to anything cause with a feeder if it can go wrong it will, IMO.

I'm trying to make quiet feeders. This looks like a way to make a very quiet metered gravity feeder. I made an auger feeder that is much quieter than a spinner, but the cost was about the same as this solenoid device. The difference would be how long the "corn bank" lasts because you are buying the whole mechanism instead of just replacing part.

I guess I dont understand the concept of what it does. I thought it just held the corn back until the timer asked for it. Then it releases and all the normal noises associated with motor and spinner and corn clanking off legs would still be there....? I dont wanna appear nosy but besides me im betting others would like to know why you want it quiet. I may be missing something(as usual) but the noise attracts the deer doesn't it?

Like a mail truck on the 3rd of the month

yep, I wasn't sure the purpose either but after watching the video, makes sense. The plunger merely raises when the timer sends power to the spin motor, allowing corn to fall onto the spinner plate while motor is spinning. When the current stops going to the motor, it also cuts off to the plunger which closes, stopping the flow of corn to the spin plate. It would appear to make the same amount of noise as a normal spin plate without the plunger mechanism install ... but doesn't leave corn on the spin plate nor does it allow gymnastic coons to spin the spin plate emptying the feeder.

I think y'all understand how it works. The point for most people is to save corn in their spinner feeders. I was hoping someone had some experience to relate on using them.

My interest is not to use it in a spinner feeder. I want a gravity feeder. This unit would just open and close letting the feed run out. Last year I did just uncontrolled gravity feed. It worked great, but I was putting out 600# every three weeks in just two feeders.

The want for a quiet feeder has to do with where I use it. I'm in GA. (I'm following y'alls' forum because it is a good one for learning about feeders. Thanks.) In GA, we've just started baiting in our part of the state. These deer are not accustomed to feeder noise. Young deer don't seem to mind much, but older deer do. Mature bucks will even shy away from a noisy trail camera. Ten years from now, maybe that will be just like TX, but it's not here now. You can't even buy a good quality feeder many places here yet.

interesting! I guess the deer here are just used to the noise and I hadn't given it much thought on the noise aspect with baiting just now opening up. Heck mine think it's a dinner bell going off ... and come running even if I am standing in the pen checking to see if the timer and battery are working properly

If you have mature deer shying away from your feeder it isn't because of the noise its making its because of the hunter that's hunting the feeder.
when it goes off.
After a feeder has gone off I've seen deer that are 100's yards out that will hall azz to be the first at the feeder to get the first cornel of corn.

I've seen them come running too IN TX. I've seen deer there show up early and wait for it to go off.

Ain't no coon going to spin this plate, nor is the wind going to blow the corn off the plate it also keeps the corn in the pen. Just as easy to make one for a 55 gallon feeder as well, deer don't care about the noise, that is nonsense, it's a dinner bell for any thing wanting a free meal

Cameras don't dispense corn... feeders do. Cameras spook deer here as well.

It will take weeks, not years, to train your deer to figure out that racket they hear means good grocery time. It's simple behavioral science. Trust me, I stayed in a Holiday Inn Express last night.

I put this pen & post up Saturday afternoon, hung the feeder and filled it Sunday, camera on Monday, deer Wednesday morning. You are giving deer to much credit, they are no different than any other creature, they look for the easiest way to survive and eat.

How do you explain the UFO in the background Dave?

Porch light I forgot to turn off

Howl, glad you let us know youre from Georgia. Ill refrain from any Georgia jokes since you admitted up front how much smarter us Texans are. Since im being nice to you for complimenting us I wont insult your intelligence by telling you that the gravity feed will most likely plunk it down in one small area. That's likely not ideal but I wont elaborate since you likely know that.
Back to the noise. Ive never been around deer that weren't used to the noise of a spin feeder and ive never had reason to even think about it. Maybe someone with experience can chime in. If you wanted a Texan to take a guess this one would say by deer season they will be used to it but that's a guess. I would be very shocked if you got a noisy one going AFTER deer season that they wouldn't be used to it by the next season. Just a Texans 2cents. Keep us posted, I am genuinely curious.

I'm not sure we can make a direct comparison. These deer aren't even the same subspecies.

You can't really believe the feeder noise thing is due to genetics? While we'll give you a break being you're in Georgia, even in La. we read about Pavlov's dog in HS Psychology. Feeder noise attraction is not bred into an animal, it's learned.

I have had up to 7 deer making a path to the feeder just after it goes off or the moments before. The feeder was put up on Sunday evening May 26th. I have over 1300 pictures of deer in this feeder pen, you can see they are all healthy, it's not like they were starving for a meal. That buck has a healthy start on bone.

I may have learned a thing or two about animals when I got my bachelor's majoring in biology. I have seen how deer in TX and deer in GA behave around spinners. I can attest to what y'all are saying about your deer, well South TX deer, behaving as claimed. The several different subspecies of deer I have hunted do exhibit slight differences in behavior. I think y'all are oversimplifying for the sake of argument.

I'm getting buck pics on my quieter-than-a-spinner auger feeder I wouldn't be getting. I'm going to build one with this solenoid plunger and see which I like better.

I was out at a fellow's ranch a week ago & he whips out his cell phone & plays the sound of a feeder going off! He had downloaded the app! ...

I don't know if it's loud enough on a cell phone to work, but I did see a guy call deer in to an empty feeder by swirling some corn around in a tin coffee can.

Again, you are giving deer too much credit.

It's your feeder knock yourself out, but we have seen too many instances where the sound of a feeder slinging corn will bring deer, coons and pigs running, or at least walking at a brisk pace.

Well, you better buy it now, it's on sale for $70

Georgia howl, I respect you for hanging in there with some Texans slinging stuff at ya. You have obviously given it a lot of thought and are willing to put some effort into your chosen solution. You are also open minded enough to ask for help in the first place. From my previous posts its clear I think the deer will get used to it as most of us do but im unsure how long it will take.
Question/suggestion- I don't know how big your place is or the situation with other hunters or neighbors but would it make any sense to setup another feeder out of the way as a test to see if they come to it.

I will also say choice of feed makes a difference too, on my place in the river bottom, I have tried food plots and they have all been a failure. There is just too much for them to choose from. In the fall when the pecans and acorns are falling, you might as well shut off the feeders.

I would experiment with food choices, soybeans, corn, pellets , small piles and see what brings them in, I still don't believe it is the noise, especially if they have just recently allowed the use of feeders, they have never heard the sound before to be conditioned one way or the other.

I don't think anyone is necessarily slinging anything, there is just tons of evidence to show otherwise, look at the number of pigs and deer that get shot over bait, if anything it would condition them to avoid it, and that just isn't the case.

You may have indeed learned a thing or two Dr. Howl, but one of those two things certainly wasn't learned stimulus response, it's a basic animal thing. I'm in North Texas, not South, I guess the deer up here immigrated from the S. Texas deer you observed and passed on said feeder noise gene? Same thing for deer in OK, they respond to the feeder thing too.



You're getting deer pics because you're dropping corn, not because it's quietly dropping corn. Deer can hear the singular click of a shutter on a game camera, so they're hearing your auger as well. For the most part, your theory already holds no water.

We're not oversimplifying just to argue, we're trying to point out facts and experience from a state where feeding has gone on for a long time. Most folks would give that some weight.

Good luck to you.

Charlie

Bachelor of Science '88
Night in Holiday Inn Express - 5/29/19

What about if you use a plastic funnel on the inside? How do you bolt it in then?

I asked the same question about the funnel but didn't get a reply. OP is same guy that asked about pouring mortar to replace funnel. Maybe hes got a plan to put it all together that we don't know about. Im giving him points for creativity and effort so im rooting for him even if he isn't from Texas! Im complimenting him cause I want a report when the smoke clears.

They make drop feeders that essentially do the same thing, but all suffer from the same fate. Corn that is not properly cleaned and a piece of the cob gets in there and stops progress. I have never poured out a bag of corn that did not have some form of trash in it.

Decades ago before feeders became the norm and were available I took an electronics course at Cisco JR College, just to create a feeder mechanism. It helped that I also knew the instructor so he gave me a lot of help on his and my time away from class. Between the 2 of us we tried the plunger method and just a slinger plate. Mind you we were working on this blind without a plan or something to copy.

The plunger system worked great until a piece of corncob jammed in it when opened. we had 25 pounds of corn on his shop floor to clean up. When the slinger plate jammed, it didn't dump the bucket we used. Granted, our plunger probably wasn't like this one. But if you want the corn slung out over the feed pen you still need a slinger motor. Another expense? I like the slinger plate and a varmit cage.

I have hunted Deer all over Texas, and mostly it has been with corn feeders. Deer responded to the noise. Respond and come running. It is *NOT* because they are used to food being there at certain times. I have seen deer show up at a feeder within 20 minutes of it spinning and an hour after being set up. I have shot a deer before the feeder went off, had the feeder go off and shot another deer. I have had a feeder not work, walked 100+ yards to feeder to trip it, walked back and have deer at feeder before I was back in blind.

If you want the plunger to keep coons out of your feeder, good luck and I hope it works. If you want it to keep sound down, you are hurting yourself

That's a good point about needing clean feed. Did y'all ever try a linear actuator instead of a plunger solenoid?

feed falls straight down..you can do the same thing with a 5 gallon bucket covering the spinner unit screwed unto the bottom of the 55 gallon feeder barrel

Hmm... so how do you account for deer (or hogs) coming to feeders which have been there for a bit, before they go off? Are they anticipating the feeder noise alone and not "I've seen food here before" ? That would also mean we don't even need to buy corn anymore, we just need a device to play a feeder sound, since the food being there has nothing to do with it?

I think the deer in this scenario have simply established a pattern. I (and prob most here) routinely have deer standing around waiting for the feeder to cycle. When the feeder cycles, some will run off a few yards then come back, but many don't seem to worry about it at all. I usually jump higher than the deer, and I KNOW exactly when it is coming. Pavlovian conditioning on both time and sound. If you quit slinging corn, even with the sound, eventually they will find an alternative.

Actually, you can. And they even used to sell attractants that were nothing more than the sound of a feeder going off. I have also heard of people using a "call" made of a coffee can and swirling pebbles around mimicking a feeder noise. Yes, you do need to throw some corn, but the deer after it has been there awhile will have a Pavolvian response to the sounds.

How about for this deer season do a little test to prove your point... You stop throwing corn and only use your coffee can call from now through Jan and tell us how things go for you?