“if you wind up with weevils purchase some diatomaceous earth, DE, and mix it in well with the feed. The DE won’t harm the chickens and it helps kill fly larvae as well.”
Keep it safe, keep it dry
Best Practices for Storing Chicken Feed
First you don’t really want to store crumbles or laying pellets long term as they have oils that can turn rancid. Whole grains can be held long term. For crumbles or pellets a two or three month supply is about you will want to hold. Always clean out any old feed before dumping new feed into the container and use the older feed first. The paper feed bags don’t do much more than allow the feed to be moved around, zero protection against insects or pests.
Chicken feed is a magnet for critters ranging from weevils to raccoons to rats. A bag of dog food in a house might be okay as it is inside but any feed stored outside or in an outbuilding is quickly going to attract pests.
Feed containers can range from metal trash cans to plastic buckets with lids but metal is better as it prevents rodents from chewing a hole to get to the feed.
If you do use plastic check if the plastic is food grade. Usually grade #1 and #2 are food grade or call the manufacturer to find out. There are lots of plastic 55 gallon drums on the recycling market and some 30 gallon drums but they will fetch a higher price due to limited numbers being used.if you wind up with weevils purchase some diatomaceous earth, DE, and mix it in well with the feed. The DE won’t harm the chickens and it helps kill fly larvae as well.
Metal trash cans make the best bulk feed containers. Easy to get the lid off, impossible to chew through, the right height from bending over and scooping out the remains of the feed.
A typical galvanized metal trash can is going to hold two fifty pound bags of feed. Some of the more humid areas might have problems with metal containers sweating inside so try it out before you purchase too many. Sweating is caused by moist air condensing out moisture on cool metal surfaces. Wrapping the trash can in insulation can prevent the sweating.
The 55 gallon metal drums are much heavier but also much cheaper and some have a lid that clamps on with a ring that wraps around the top. A 55 gallon drum will hold over 200# of feed.