A feeder vessel may refer to:
1: Small vessel on which goods are transferred to a large vessel. The large vessel usually is unable to reach a river or canal. The feeder frequently is a barge type vessel.
2: Large, main ports tend to be served by the largest class container vessels, referred to as Mother vessels. These mother vessels do not travel up river to inland hubs or depots, the cargo from those outports is carried on a smaller class of container vessel, to the main ports. Those smaller vessels are referred to as feeder vessels.