Chicken Feeder

Check out this video to see how the feeder works...

The feeder is housed on the left side of the coop with a hinged roof for refilling.

And is essentially a motor-driven plastic cereal dispenser.

A motor is attached to where the handle would normally be for dispensing cereal.

There is a hole in the bottom of the box for the chicken feed to fall to the ground.  I covered the hole with some wire to prevent animals from getting in.

💡Lesson Learned: Never use anything bigger than 1/4" wire mesh for chicken coops.  I added that type of mesh later to what is shown in the photos above because the chickens started to peck at the bottom to get out more food, and likely we had some rodents laughing at that green wire as well!

💡Lesson Learned: The Ratproof Chicken Feeder is a MUST unless you fully enclose your birds and feed in 1/4" wire mesh.  This is how I feed my girls pellets, and I just use this automated feeder for dropping scratch.

Components

Dry Food (Cereal) Dispenser

The dispenser I selected is the Dry Food Dispenser, Black/Chrome

It has nice flexible rubber pallets at the bottom which work well for holding food and at the same time not jamming.

120V Low RPM Motor

I used an inexpensive low RPM motor (20-30 RPM) to turn the crank on the cereal dispenser.  This is switched on and off through one of the high voltage relays connected to the controller box outlets.  A standard 120V AC plug is connected to the motor wires and plugged into the box for switching.
Search eBay for "120V rpm motor" or "120V gear motor".

💡Lesson Learned: A 12V DC geared motor would probably be a better option for this purpose because it's generally safer to run lower voltage wire in case that wire ever gets damaged.  I still use this 120V motor without issue, and it's all "indoors" of the coop with a short run of wire, but I've used DC motors in all my other projects and would recommend that option along with a continuous DC power supply.