Chickens for 10-20 years or more? Pull up a rockin' chair and lay some wisdom on us!

[qball53]

Well good luck with those we think thay are an absolute waste of money, they are not cheap! I bought 11 and at first we though how great they were but witin a week and over the course of several weeks every one of them began to leak. They did not leak at the connection, they began to overflow. Called the vendor and got a load of crap. They obiouvoy did not care to stand behind the product. Apparently there is a float mechanism inside that gets clogged and then they begin to overflow. Well if it becomes clogged with the dirt off the beaks of the chickens in a week to three weeks then they are useless. As far as we are concerned the vendor stole #111 from us.

Sorry I'm going to ask this again... Could you please comment on your "automatic waterers" that you use?
I've been experimenting with a couple different options but the jury is still out due to various issues. I'd LOVE to hear what folks are using for auto-waterers.

I did try the nipples but had issues with one set leaking too much water and the second set seemed to be working okay but after a week I never saw the girls drinking from them which concerns me. (Even when I tried to coax them to drink, it would be only a peck or 2 then no interest...even though they had been using the prior nipples for several weeks with success.) If the day was REALLY HOT, I'd put a pan of cold water outside in the hot afternoons for them to stand in and cool off and they'd drink from it like a herd of camels in the desert at an oasis which made me wonder if they were using the nipples at all.

Right now I'm trying these from Premier Fence: http://www.premier1supplies.com/detail.php?prod_id=78557&cat_id=141 (See photos) But...I don't think I'll be able to keep them from freezing with the bucket heater in the winter like I could with the nipples!

 

[Erin~TheChickenLover]

Oh by the way, I think the most important thing I have learned so far is... Do Not Help Chicks Out Of The Egg! They need to find the strength to do it themselves! I learned this the hard way and almost lost a chick. We helped a chick out of the egg and she was healthy but soo weak. She had no strength in her legs or neck because she didn't have a chance to gain the strength by breaking out of the egg herself. I had to stay up an entire night to help her or she would have died. So yeah, don't help chicks out of the egg, they need to do it themselves.

 

[jeapa]

I have to agree with you about the temperature.  I raised my recent brood in a dog crate down cellar.  Easily contained and pretty convenient, but considerably cooler than most would suggest, as the temperature down stairs is typically in the mid-50's.  Even using two heat lamps, I couldn't get the temp up as high as every expert I could find said I should.  Funny, the little cheeps seemed just fine.  They weren't ever all crowded together under the lamp, as they would if they felt cold.  I think the highest I could get it was about 85, which is where I left it for two weeks.  Then I started moving the lamps up every 5 or 6 days until they were around 70 degrees.  Then, at five weeks, we moved them out into their own hen house, which we also kept at about 70. Next step, after a week, we let them out in their pen, but kept a heat lamp on at night and on rainy days.  I took the heat lamp out yesterday.  They're 9 weeks old at this point, and appear to be happy & healthy.  So much for conventional wisdom! 

 

I'll go even a step further, because I turned the heat lamp off of mine at 3 weeks. I brooded them in the coop from day 1 and at 2 weeks they were only getting heat at night. They are all doing great and will be 6 weeks old on Monday.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Well good luck with those we think thay are an absolute waste of money, they are not cheap! I bought 11 and at first we though how great they were but witin a week and over the course of several weeks every one of them began to leak. They did not leak at the connection, they began to overflow. Called the vendor and got a load of crap. They obiouvoy did not care to stand behind the product. Apparently there is a float mechanism inside that gets clogged and then they begin to overflow. Well if it becomes clogged with the dirt off the beaks of the chickens in a week to three weeks then they are useless. As far as we are concerned the vendor stole #111 from us.

Thanks for your input on that. I will be watching closely to see how they fare. Even if there IS a way to clean out the inside part, I don't want to be taking waterers apart to clean them out.

Guess I'll post an update in a few weeks to let you know if I have the same problem.

 

[HOMEBODY12]

i also bought some of these and I do have the same problem, either overflowing or blocked. I take them apart and clean out and it only last a couple of days. not really worth the money, but I did like the idea behind them.

 

[al6517]

Why not just use a zip tie or a string/wire and place a piece of cloth or screening material ( old T-shirt is great ) on the inside portion that will act as a dirt filter, that should fix that problem and if your water get's a tad nasty sometimes just take off the filter cloth real quick and rinse it out and reattach, or spray it good with the hose when you fill it, a cover would be good too. Eazzy peezzy wheezzy

 

[rcn177]

No, I keep them in the pen until about 4 o'clock in the afternoon then I let them out for a few hours.

 

[Morabilityranch]

Hi everyone I just discovered this thread, I am also kinda new here at BYC. I have been keeping Chickens for 25 + years actually probably pushing closer to 30 but saying 25 don't make me feel soooo old. I learn something new about poultry nearly every day and look forward to hearing other old timers experiences and thoughts.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Why not just use a zip tie or a string/wire and place a piece of cloth or screening material ( old T-shirt is great ) on the inside portion that will act as a dirt filter, that should fix that problem and if your water get's a tad nasty sometimes just take off the filter cloth real quick and rinse it out and reattach, or spray it good with the hose when you fill it, a cover would be good too. Eazzy peezzy wheezzy

There is actually a screen on the inside of the intake from the bucket. Not sure if that's new since the other folks bought theirs? But...I think that's a great idea to try putting an additional layer in there. wonder if a piece of old panty hose would do the trick?

 

[galanie]

Well, I'm not an OT and I have only had chickens for 6 or 7 years, but I have learned a little about them and unfortunately, I learned the hard way. This is all just in my opinion...
1.) Don't worry if the waterer is a little bit dirty. Chickens don't mind, they drink from mud puddles in the wild. 
2.) You don't need to clean out their pens every day of the year. (I actually used to do that) If there are a few droppings in there the world won't end. 
3.) Chickens WILL come to roost at night. You don't have to watch them when you let them out of their pens. They are not going to wonder off and get lost. (I used to sit out with my chickens the entire time they were out of the pen and then corral them back into the pen like they couldn't do it themselves
4.) Don't try and carry chickens around like puppies. It just causes more stress for everybody. If you want to carry something around, then get a puppy. 
5.) Relax...chickens do a good job of taking care of themselves. Don't worry about them so much
6.) Understand that a chicken is a chicken and don't get too attached. Yes, they are going to die eventually. Understand that and save yourself some grief later. Leave some of the emotion out of it. 
7.) Chickens are going to try to waste their feed. I now have 2 big feed pans in the coop that the chickens can get in and scratch around without flinging the feed to China. This works best for me. I just dump some food in the pans and go. No fancy hanging feeders for me, the chickens don't need it. 
8.) Chickens don't need to have a heater in the winter. They can come out in the cold just fine and won't even mind snow too much. (I used to think that if they came out when it was really cold then they would get sick and die or something. That's just not how it is.)

Oh by the way, I think the most important thing I have learned so far is... Do Not Help Chicks Out Of The Egg! They need to find the strength to do it themselves! I learned this the hard way and almost lost a chick. We helped a chick out of the egg and she was healthy but soo weak. She had no strength in her legs or neck because she didn't have a chance to gain the strength by breaking out of the egg herself. I had to stay up an entire night to help her or she would have died. So yeah, don't help chicks out of the egg, they need to do it themselves. 

Great advice.