Water cups

i Just made a bucket type with these watering cups and I am worried that my ladies are not getting enough water. The cups always seem dry and when there are no other water sources (freezing) they seem really thirsty when i go out there. I have had it installed for about a month now and my ladies are 4-5 years old. If my bucket (3 gallons is getting drained they must be getting it out some how right?
How do you suggest i train my new chicks to drink out of this?
thanks!!
 
Chix:

Are you saying you allow your water cups to freeze with no other source of water? That would not be good.

Go back in this thread to my posts #16 and #19. To teach them to use the cups, hold the yellow lever down to fill the cup. They will then drink it dry. To get the last drop, they nudge the lever and get another drop and from there, it is a short trip to them figuring it out. Even when they are using it, the cup appears to be dry. They won't hold it open to fill it. They only drink it dry, then when they nudge it, they get another drop or two, drink that and keep going.

But if frozen, no joy. A frozen cup gives them nothing. To avoid that, I have also installed a horizontal nipple, and use a bird bath heater in the bucket. They can use either, but their preference is the cup until it freezes (around +25F), at which time they switch to the nipple.
 
I use both a waterer with cups and a bucket with nipples. Each have a heater in them. The chickens prefer the cups and as long as I keep the heater close to the cups the water stays unfrozen until the temps get below 20. The nipples stay unfrozen down into the teens. Many times the cups look dry but not frozen. Sometimes, whatever is left in the cups after a chicken drinks, may evaporate before another chicken comes to drink. I know they're drinking because the water levels in both waterers go down. When it is really cold and the cups and nipples are frozen, I take the girls a pan of water and they drink from that. Problem with that, is, I have to keep checking the pan throughout the day.
 
I think i miss worded my post. the bucket with the cups doesn't freeze, i have it heated. I also have 2 other water sources besides the new bucket, and when those freeze the ladies seemed a little thirsty. That's why i was worried the ladies were not drinking enough water from just the cups. I did do the finger waggle in the cups many many times to get their attention to it.

After reading your other threads, it does make sense that water wouldn't be just standing in the cups all the time. And if the bucket keeps draining, it must be getting drank, since it isn't leaking.
 
Hi everyone, I know this is an old post, but wanted to share my experience since I got so many great ideas from this thread. My girls are OBSESSED with oatmeal. So I filled the cups up a bit, and tossed some oatmeal in there. They went crazy for it and quickly figured out how to peck the yellow lever. I agree with what someone wrote about about them only hitting the yellow lever to just get out enough water for them to drink. They won't fill it up to the top as we would (or as I was doing when I went out to check on them). I kept an eye on them after I left and soon saw that they had figured it out after I put the oatmeal in there. Good luck!
 

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