Mini Cup Automatic Waterers

My chickens did not catch on very quickly to chicken waterer cups, so I began to search out an automatic solution that would provide lots of water in our hot climate. I found the Mini Cup Waterer at Fleming's and purchased two immediately! They were simple to install to a 5 gallon bucket, but leaked. So we untwisted the unit, applied PVC glue and waited overnight. Worked like a charm. The birds have been using them for 3 months with no leakage problems. Off to buy more for the new babies!

I installed this on a covered bucket and it works as advertised. If you put it on a bucket with a lid and use the supplied filter, I don't see how it would plug up. Every couple of days I will take a towel and wipe out the cup to get rid of any debris that the chickens might kick up into it and that's about it. I do have the bucket mounted high and the chickens have to use a step to drink out of it. I am thinking of a way to cover the cup so I don't have to wipe it out as often. Shouldn't be too hard to come up with something. Try one, you'll like it.

So, after living with this for a while, I experienced the over flow phenomena that the other reviewer had. It happened right after cleaning it. I had spun it upside down to dump the water out of the cup like they show in their video and when I filled it back up it just kept coming out.
I emptied it out and turned it over to find 2 small screws holding it together. I took it apart to see how it worked and found a small float that rises with the cup water level and seals the the hole that fills the cup. I figured the float just got stuck and was not sealing the hole so I put it back together and it worked again. From now on I will be more careful cleaning it and if it ever sticks again just try tapping on it to unstick the float.
Still like it better than nipples for our coop!


I left my original review but I checked the water today and the cup was dry....I took it apart and cleaned it, put back together and it started to overflow again....I'm done with it.

This is useless for chickens. The internal mechanism clogs within a week and causes the entire water container to leak out. There is no way to prevent or fix this because the valve is inside the molded together component.