Bleach in chicken water

It is used as a disease preventative and/or treatment. I know a couple people that do this.

 

Imp

I've heard of people doing that to keep away algae, but it seems like there are safer options, like a lemon slice or just keeping it out of the sun in the first place.

I would think drinking household bleach would have some long term side effects on the chickens, but the people I've heard of doing it say it's OK. But I would think as far as sanitation goes you would be better off with something like ChickenWaterer mentioned that is food grade.
Edited by MsBagawkbagawk - 8/20/12 at 10:22pm

Most people in cities are drinking Bleach or Sodium Hypo. every day which is used by municipalities for water purification.. Either in Liquid or Gas form.  I use it in my rain barrels to keep out the skeeters and control any growths.  I use a liquid 12% Sodium Hypo. you should be able to get some industrial strength at the the Home Depot.

 

  I have raised my flock on a teaspoon

of apple cider vinegar in their a gal. of water

and its changed every day.

never bleach. 

I use apple cider vinegar and it works fine..

]I use Braggs Apple Cider Vinegar with the "mother" in it. It is cheaper at the grocery store in the health food section than at the feed store. It keeps the water from getting alge and slimy .

I am an R.N. and when I started raising chickens I thought everything had to be sterile, but have since seen the light.  In winter, there is almost no slime in the waterers and chickens don't drink as much.  Just keeping it thawed out is a challenge, but in summer it gets slimey after 1 day even with a tablespoonful of ACV per gallon.  I try to change mine each day in summer, and add many pans of water around my yard.  I stopped using bleach to clean the waterers  a long time ago, and found they don't die if you just use palmolive dishwashing detergent on a little sponge to clean them good.  Some people don't even do that much, but I still put the vinegar in my plastic containers.  

I think it may depend on how big the waterer is too.  We only have 6 chickens so our waterer is about a half gallon.  We rinse it out daily and give it a bit of scrub about once a week and it's been just fine.  It's plastic so it doesn't pick up some of the stuff a metal one would.  Essentially, I do the same I do for the dogs' water dishes, LOL.

 

If you get a lot of hard water deposit (been there, done that but our water here is really good), use some CLR when you get the build up. Just make sure you scrub it thoroughly afterward so absolutely no chemical remains.. I'd wash it at least 3 times with soap and hot water and rinse it for several minutes after that.

 

We picked up some ACV yesterday and are going to start putting some of that in their water...not to keep it clean but to help regulate their intestinal flora.  I've discovered that if you mix in some of the raw into regular ACV, it will innoculate it as well, so I'm hoping the one small bottle we got will be our only purchase of the more expensive stuff ;)