sdean959

I am interested in Cabelas thirty dollar bolt-on automatic deer feeder. I would like to hear from those who have used this product: What is the dependibility? duability? reliability? etc. of this gadget? How is it in bad wheather? What about battery life? Thanks in advance
DS

Ballistictip

I' ve never used the Cabela' s feeder so I can' t give you any info on them. The timer I' ve used for 6 years now is a Game Country. It cost about $80 but can be programed to feed up to 10 times per day at any time you want it to go off. It uses a 6 volt lantern battery that lasts 2 months. Never had a single problem with it.

TimberPig

I assume you are asking about the green plastic economy feeder which you attach to your own container? If so, I got one for X-mas. I attached it to a plastic 15 gallon barrel (bummed off local mechanic), made it into a hanging feeder, and had a buddy who works at a metals shop make me a nice lid out of galvanized metal. The feeder seems to work pretty well, it throws corn in about a 30 foot circle. This is a photo-cell type feeder. I set it up in the back yard on Jan 2nd and it is still on the same battery, although I dont throw that much corn. Feeding times can be set up to 6 morning and night, I think, and can last from 1 sec to 30 seconds. This is handy because I discovered that birds like cardinals, jays, etc would have all the morning corn eaten by afternoon, so I just set the morning feeding to 1 sec. Now the birds have to scavenge what the deer leave behind from the night before. My only complaints are that the battery is a little hard to install, and unless you have a better memory than me, dont throw away the instructions on setting feeding times as they can be a little confusing. As for bad weather, the directions say it is only supposed to work down to about 32 degrees, but it has been below zero here several times and I have not noticed that it failed to work. As a side note, I think it is interesting that I have never seen a buck feeding there, not even late at night when I come home from work. If ya have any more questions, feel free to ask.

Tree climber

I have used the Moultrie econo. feeders for about 10 years,and they work pretty good. only had one go bad.
battries will last for about 5 to 6 mo' s.
I have 5,my buddies have 7 all together. so with that many,they must be pretty fair feeders.....bad weather has not effected them,of course we don' t get a lot of freezing weather.just a few days below freezing a year.

RonM

My buddy got one from basspro for 29.99, and it does a good job, in fact we talked aboutmit last evening and when my catalogue gets here I am going to order one.. He is sold on it and sold me on it...

lawnfarmer

I have one and tried it on a 7gal. plastic bucket. Everything worked great. I had to fill it quite often though. As you said, the battery is dead fast here since it may not get above freezing for a couple of months at a time, and below zero or in the single digits at night. A good friend in Texas suggested a solar charger to keep the battery up but they only work if the sun shines. It usually doesn' t here, in the winter. For 30 bucks I think with your climate it will work o.k.