slimy water

[scrapmom5]

Hey everyone:

I was wondering if any of y'all have slimy residue in your waterer. I clean mine every five days and it is often slimy. I have added ACV and it was still slimy. DH wants to add a little bleach and I was wondering if that would work. What have you done to remedy this?

 

[jjthink]

I change water twice daily so no troubles there but it's easy for me because I only have a couple of feathered friends so they drink from bowls that I can just carry to the sink and wash. I am imagining you may have one of the hanging dispensers that is not as easy........?.

JJ

 

[dangerouschicken]

I clean mine once a day. My chickens are pigs.

 

[scrapmom5]

I do have one of the big 5 gallon heated things. My girls take about 5 days to empty it since they have access to water else where. I wanted something big enough to take care of their needs if I were out of town for a while. I have 15 girls to water. There 3 pound feeder only gets cleaned every 4-6 weeks since they free range in my yard and because it does not get dirty (I do wipe the outside off often).

Do any of you add chlorine???????

Is there anything else you add to help?

Do I need to run water all the way out to the hen house to accomodate them?

 

[patandchickens]

If mine starts to get a bit slimy in the 'trough' part (you know, the circular part they actually drink out of - I'm talking about the vacuum style waterers here) I just 'brush' the slime loose with a finger and dump that part of the water into a bucket to put on the garden or whatever... once it goes glug glug glug and the trough refills I call it good. Works fine for me.

(I do occasionally scrub the inside of the reservoir part of the waterer when refilling it).

Pat

 

[Farmer Kitty]

Clean the waterer using a bleach water solution and then only fill it enough for a couple days. When you have to go out of town then fill it full but, otherwise when you're home don't. It doesn't matter to the waterer if you fill it full each time or not.

 

[gritsar]

All animals water dishes get slimey. My big dog's water bowl is the worse! My chicken waterer has a removable trough which I take off and rinse before refilling the reservoir, twice a day. Every other day I use dish soap to scrub the whole thing down, rinse, then refill. Keeps the slime from building up too bad.

 

[WisconsinChick]

Cleaning the waterers AT LEAST every other day works for me

 

[priszilla]

I feed and water twice a day-dump and replace all the water.The ACV did make a difference-but I'm out and haven't found any more with the mother

.I have the waterers mostly up on bricks too.I am way more fastidious with them than my own house.

 

[Dawn419]

I clean our waterers daily/every other day, depending on the weather. I use baby bottle scrubbers for cleaning them.

I haven't found anything that keeps the "scum" away other than constant/continual cleanings and keeping the waterers out of any direct sunlight.

Yes, bleaching would more than likely do the trick but I am straying away from that...even in our household.


Dawn