Nipple waterers for chicks

[kara_leigh]

I don't have the nipples, but I have been using a large guinea pig water bottle, the kind with the metal tube with the ball in the end, and all of my chicks have been using it easily. I'm not entirely sure how much water it holds, but they go through almost a whole bottle every day, so I know they are getting plenty of water. I see them using it constantly. All it took was me taking each of them and poking their little beaks into it to show them what it does, and after that they had it down.

I only use that when they are in the brooder. The rest of my chickens free range and I have big, low tubs of water that they drink from. I change the water every day, and they love to drink from them. Like this one:

That is my small one. I also have a bigger one on my front porch. They are for all of my animals...chickens, cats, and dogs.

 

[larsonll]

I am the original poster to this message. Ok, so I have tried an experiment without really trying. My 5 and 8 year old girls cracked the container with the nipple waterers, and the other two were really in too tall containers for the chicks to get under them anymore, so I took them out. I continued to use the chick waterer with my chicks (then 2 weeks old), and it seemed that they used it, but naturally being the big scratchers they are, I have to change this waterer 2-3 times a day despite elevating it on blocks due to shavings they scratch in. This was over a week ago.

I ordered the 11/32 bit on Ebay to make my own plus more nipple waterers on Ebay that were super cheap. The nipples arrived today, and I used a short bucket left over from horse treats to make a new waterer with 3 nipples.

My chicks hit it like no tomorrow. I've not seen them this active about water in over a week! They didn't forget. So, I'm not so worried about using the nipple waterers alone at all.

 

[hayabusa3]

They won't allow themselves to die of thirst! Just get a 5 gallon bucket and add a bunch of nipples, tap it with your finger and they will see the water flow. Done. Remove the other source of water and don't go back. Now you can go out of town for a week or more and not worry about them.

 

[Tracydr]

Quote:
We're installing automatic horse waterers for our chickens this fall. Not nterested in digging a trench in this heat, especially with our rock hard caliche ground. I buy the waterers for my horses from the feed store for $32.00. Very simple installation if you already have the PVC pipe run. It gives a nice big bowl for them to drink out of but not so much that they can stand in it and poop or drown. We'll put it at shoulder height for the smallest Banties.
For the summer time, I still have to put out huge wading pools of water but at least during the rest of the year they'll only have clean, fresh, automatic water. I do change the wading " pools" which are really just rubber made tub lids and other three inch pans two or three times a day and clean with a bleach/ soap solution once a week.

 

[kcfuerst]

I use nipples outside, but the babies can't reach them. Inside the coop I use a gravity fed watering dish and everybody sucks up that one before bedtime, plus the little ones can jump onto the cinder block to drink as well. Just a matter of preference I think. I still have to wash out the waterer weekly, but I don't mind.

 

[Bantam Chase]

In the nasty humid hotness of late June I switched the old flock over onto nipple waterers. I did it gradually over 2 or 3 days, and finally took away the traditional water. Not a single bird keeled over from the heat... and we've got a 10 year old rooster. Yes, they prefer to drink from skuzzy open swamp water, but the nipple system is so much cleaner and healthier for them. We've had the bucket going for 2 months now and I've wiped it down twice, just because I felt I should, not because it needed it.

I have some 10 week old chicks and an older pullet together, I just put in the 1 gallon bucket w/ a nipple, they were drinking from it within an hour. With any luck and I get chicks from the incubator they will have open water for the first 2 or 3 days only, then off to nipples for them.