Animal feeder

Abstract

An animal feeder for supplying a feed to an animal of choice for feeding the animal of choice in an unprotected environment such as the outdoors. The feeder comprising a base for support the feeder on a ground surface, a support frame extending upwardly from the base and a hopper supported by the frame. The hopper having a storage reservoir for storing a supply of feed with a feed entry opening that is closeable to prevent exposure to the outdoors. The hopper further including a feed chute below the reservoir having an upper region sealingly joined to the reservoir and a lower region below the upper region that is sealingly joined to a feeding chamber. The feeding chamber having a bottom surface wherein the feed supply can move from the reservoir into the feeding chamber and rest on the bottom surface based on gravity alone. The hopper further including a horizontally extending elongated channel extending from the feeding chamber with an outer end having a feeding opening open to the outdoors wherein the feeding chamber is spaced from the opening and the feed substantially remains within the hopper and spaced from the outdoors until it is consumed by the animal of choice.

Description

[0001] This application claims priority on U.S. provisional application Ser. No. 60 / 700,818, filed Jul. 20, 2005, entitled “ANIMAL FEEDER”.[0002] This invention relates to the art of feeding animals and, more particularly, to an animal feeder that can feed multiple animals simultaneously and can maintain a large supply of feed without the feed being adversely exposed to the environment and other animals. INCORPORATION BY REFERENCE [0003] The present invention relates to animal feeders and, more particularly, to an animal feeder that is adaptable to feed more than one animal and maintain a large supply of feed. United States published application No. US 2003 / 0005887 discloses an animal feeder having a container for maintaining the feed and multiple outlets for feeding the animals and is incorporated by reference herein as background information illustrating the same. Schultz U.S. Pat. No. 5,794,561 discloses an animal feeder including a large feed storage bin and a feed trough, and i...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0009] In accordance with the present invention, provided is an animal feeder that efficiently feeds animals and that can store quantities of feed over a long period of time and which can control the eating intervals of the animals. More particularly, provided is an animal feeder that includes a supply hopper for the animal feed and at least one feeding outlet that is shaped to receive the snout of the desire animal or animals to be fed.

Problems solved by technology

As can be appreciated, periodically feeding the animals can be time consuming and expensive if human intervention is needed each time the animals need to be fed.

As a result, the owners often employ someone to feed their animals and the expense of employing someone to feed the animals twice daily can be substantial.

In addition, it is also desirous to leave the animals unattended in the fenced area for extended periods.

Further, the unattended feed is exposed to the elements and can become contaminated.

However, prior art animal feeding devices have been found to be inefficient in controlling the flow of feed and inefficient in feeding many types of animals such as deer.

The prior art devices also expose at least some of the feed to the environment.

Further, the prior devices do not employ efficient mechanisms to easily control when the animals can feed and mechanisms to allow the feeder to be easily moved.

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