An absorbent structure manufacturing apparatus including a feeder improved so that the feed amount as well as the feed target region of an absorbent discrete material may be adjusted and, even when the kind of the absorbent discrete material is changed, the predetermined amount may be intermittently fed without changing the existing measuring roller to another measuring roller. A feeder 14 includes a measuring roller 17 rotating in one direction and provided on its outer peripheral surface with a filling region 32 adapted to be filled with a predetermined amount of an absorbent discrete material 13, a material feeding space 24 adapted to reserve the absorbent discrete material 13 and to feed the absorbent discrete material 13 to the filling region 32 of the measuring roller 17, a scraper 25 located downstream the material feeding space 24 so as to extend along a part of the outer peripheral surface of the measuring roller 17 and functioning to scrape surplus amount of the absorbent discrete material 13 fed to the filling region 32 and thereby to fill the filling region 32 with the predetermined amount of the absorbent discrete material 13, a feed chute 40 adapted to receive the absorbent discrete material 13 from the filling region 32 and to retain this temporarily and an open-close movable shutter 20 forming a portion of a peripheral wall defining the feed chute 40 wherein the measuring roller 20 is rotary driven in one direction by rotary drive means 21 through the intermediary of a rotary shaft 18 and the shutter 20 is open-close controlled by open-close actuator means 21. The rotary drive means 19 and the open-close actuator means 21 are electrically controlled by a control unit 22 so that the rotary drive means 19 is rotated at a velocity corresponding to a conveyance velocity of the continuous sheet 11 and the open-close actuator means 21 open-close controls the shutter 20 in timing corresponding to the conveyance velocity. In this way, the absorbent discrete
