Woods Colony House - Portable

Nothing beats a chicken nipple system for keeping the water clean, whether a simple bucket system, or a fancy heated pipe system with the nipples in the PVC pipe.

Sounds like Howard is using a chicken nipple bucket, and taking it in the house every night.

My bucket will usually not freeze in the high 20's, but it's been a cold winter, and the nipples have frozen several times (how I know the limits of the freezing temperaures) with no leaks or damage to the nipples I can see.

I use the horizontal nipples, just a horizontal metal nipple with a tiny cup (half inch), not the horizobtwl kind with a larger cup. There's also the type that go on the bottom of the bucket, instead of the sides. After a bunch of reading, it appeared from reviews, that the tiny cup horizontal nipple is simpler, and leaks less.

If there several days of freezing predicted, I remove the nipple bucket and switch to my cold weather backup plan.

I have an 18"x24" small black Home Depot mortar mixing tub. I made a slot to fit it on the south end of the tractor, that I can access and remove through a small external flap door.

I take a big bucket of water out on those freezing mornings, dumo the frozen tub, put the tub back and dump the warm water in the tub.

Because the tub has a large surface area, is black, which absorbs heat, and is at the sunny south end of the tractor, it usually stays unfrozen until roosting time, even with daytime highs in the teens.

I've also read filling a couple of plastic bottles, like a 20 ounce soda bottle, with a solution of salt water, which won't freeze, and placing it in the tub helps to prevent freezing, but I have no personal experience with that.

2018-02-03 14.18.47.jpg

Chicken nipple bucket. Its nice they're on the sides, then you're able to set the bucket on the ground to fill it.

2018-01-20 20.54.28.jpg

The freezing weather backup water supply being filled in the morning.

2018-02-14 12.58.24.jpg

I got these chicken nipples on Amazon, they're pretty inexpensive, a few dollars for several. Drill holes in plastic bucket and screw them in. Haven't leaked since installed 7 months ago, even after freezing several times. I did wrap the threads in teflon tape. Naturally, the metal freezes first when they do freeze, usually in the high 20's for me.

Do yourself a favor if you have a bucket you've got to open and shut a lot. Get a screw on Gamma Seal lid, like you see on the nipple bucket, mine happens to be blue, but they have to other colors too. Just snap on the outer ring, then you can screw the lid on and off easily.
20180214_131722.jpg

Gamma Seal assembly snapped onto a 7.5 gallon plastic bucket from Uline. If I recall they are between $8 and $12 each for the Gamma Seal.

I wanted a taller 7.5 gallon bucket for my nipple bucket. That provides more pressure at the nipples because it's taller, and of course, it has 50 percent more capacity than a standard 5 gallon bucket.

The best place I've found for these buckets, and the Gamma Seal, was at Uline.com They're a huge industrial supply company, and the best prices I saw.
 
Last edited:
I would not go 12' x 16'. Better to go the other way and adopt Jack E's 8' x 16' house (2 x the width). Will function that way better than wider. Or see if half sheet drops can be used on either front or back on the 10' x 16'? You may find you have less waste than you think.

Or consider other options, like metal siding over insulation, etc. I used T1-11, but not sure I would again. In general, T1-11 available today is low quality. Lots of voids, etc.
 
So if a 10 x 16 was supposed to be good for 40 birds would you recommend trying 12x18 if I have 50 to 55 birds? I wish I knew if there was anyone in MN with experience building and using these structures, last winter we had -30! Also curious if anyone has tried to use the same type of building for ducks as well.
 
@jahdereh - hello, welcome to BYC!

The book "Modern Fresh-Air Poultry Houses" is available to read here (for free, public domain): https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924003138272;view=1up;seq=1

Basically, the dimensions/angles are specific to the way the air flows in the "K-D house", so to my knowledge you can't just "size up" to fit more birds. Have a read through the book, and I'm sure more knowledgeable folks will have more answers to your questions!
 
@jahdereh - hello, welcome to BYC!

The book "Modern Fresh-Air Poultry Houses" is available to read here (for free, public domain): https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924003138272;view=1up;seq=1

Basically, the dimensions/angles are specific to the way the air flows in the "K-D house", so to my knowledge you can't just "size up" to fit more birds. Have a read through the book, and I'm sure more knowledgeable folks will have more answers to your questions!
Thanks! I have read through the book but most of it send like a foreign language to me
 
If you need to build bigger Woods covers what he called the long house. Essentially a 10x16 or 20x20 side by side. Keeping the same dimensions just separating inside every 10 feet. 16 or 20 deep and as wide as you want in 10 foot increments. You can easily mix or separate flocks as needed this way too, if you separate runs.
 

New posts New threads Active threads

Back
Top Bottom