Wooden feeder rebuild

With all the stress and strain the cattle put on the large wooden feeder this Winter a rebuild was on the to-do this for this Summer.  As usual the cattle altered my schedule.  Last week they busted up the feeder.  I think they realized that some of the grain from the hay had fallen between the cracks in the floor.  They broke one end of the feeder to get in and then upended all of the floor boards.

The corner legs were two by four boards.  With all the abuse, and nailing and re-nailing, the legs were shot.  I replaced them with six by six boards I had rescued from the neighboring company's burn pile.  Three of the boards were the correct length to be a leg and I only had to cut a few inches off the fourth board.   Since the corner legs are six inches I was able to cut a little into the legs for the end floor boards rather than having to nail a board to the side to act as a shelf to hold the floor board.  And notching the end floor board into the legs makes the feeder even more stable and solid.

The side boards on one end were also shot from the nailing and re-nailing.  I cut four inches off the one end.  The feeder is long enough that the loss of four inches doesn't make a difference.