These feed barrels always catch just enough water after a rain for mosquitos to grow in.
So I have to manually splash the water out after each rain thanks to the design of the lids. Grateful for rain always but this is a PITA.
Anyone have a solution to this besides being under a roof or a sheet of metal that’ll flap around?
#grownostr #homesteading #chickens 
Could you build some kind of stand that would let you store them on an angle?? Or maybe some kind of lid/cover for each bin lid.. I was thinking a circle of plastic held on by a bungie cord.
I was going to recommend mosquito bits, but I'm guessing you don't want chemicals near the feed.
A little bit of mosquito dunks on top of each of the lids might do the trick. My understanding is that they work as a bacteria. Perhaps lay the containers on their side.
Do you need in the barrels every day?
1) Could you tarp them in such a way that undoing the tarp and dumping the water is a near single motion? “Unclip, raise, lower, reclip”
2) Could you fill the recessed top with something like a floor leveler? Or just clay.
3) Could you get a large sponge or sponge material cut to size and glue it to the top, the sponge wicks up the water and increases surface area for evaporation. No standing water for breeding and just takes a quick depression with a cut board circle to squeeze out excess water.
4)Is the top lid thick enough that you could cut a piece out of the rim so the water passively runs out without it also getting into what is in the barrel.
That’s what I got so far, good luck.
Thanks y’all! I’ve done the store them at an angle when they were in a different location and that lowered the amount of water buildup but the squigglers still appeared unless I got the last of the water.
Might just go for the tarp idea and see if that works well enough, probably will use a huge one that’s double or tripled folded so the water doesn’t sag.
Thanks again, always good to get others perspective
Find some bacillus thuringiensis. It's a bacteria that naturally lives in the dirt, so the animals are exposed to it all the time anyway. Bt infects insect larvae and kills them dead.
Level one barrel, use a measuring cup (counting the amount you are adding) and fill on top till the water over flows. That will be the volume of material you need to mix up. Source a self setting material you might have. Lets say concrete, scuff the top area where you will me adding concrete, with 80grit sand paper ( you want to add "tooth" to surface for concrete to stick) fill with concrete or what ever material you come up with. Other option might be to try hot gluing a sheet plastic top on it.
