5 gallon office water cooler style for chickens?

[breakout]

Chances are if you look at the tag that came on your garden hose it will say not to use it for drinking water because of the chemicals in it. See:

http://www.healthytomorrow.org/2012/05/garden-supplies.html

Even if you're not drinking the water you're probably eating the eggs. So maybe condider using a non-toxic hose made for RVs.

Here's a video of someone making a bucket waterer

 

[BellevueOmlet]

The problem with that is that they would all just stand around the office cooler and never get anything done, lowering egg production. I've seen it a thousand times.

 

[Jubilee1111]

The problem with that is that they would all just stand around the office cooler and never get anything done, lowering egg production. I've seen it a thousand times.

 

[breakout]

 

[3 irish boys]

 

[mamabigbird]

I have one of those fill and flip waterers. I mostly don't use it except for baby chicks, so they don't drown themselves.
My really low-tech system is simple and cheap. One gallon ice cream buckets with the handy carrying handle. The hens have only knocked it over a couple of times in the 3+ years. Easy to clean and fill. I place several around the property in summer. They have a shallow rubber water tub in their pen that they love to stand in (weird birds) and drink from.
Ice cream buckets do become brittle after a few months but then it's a good excuse for buying more ice cream. lol.

 

[breakout]

Really? Just stick some pennies in my waterers?

~ Aspen

I can't point to the source but I read somewhere that while the pennies may work to kill the algae the copper is not necessarily good for your chickens. ACV seems like a safer solution.

 

[BellevueOmlet]

Really? That tiny amount of copper? A penny is 2.5% copper so I really doubt it would do much.

I have an enclosed system that prevents algae. I fill the bucket and then seal the lid and it goes to the cups and there is never any algae in the cups.

 

[chiques chicks]

I believe someone posted a 5 gallon water cooler waterer a few days ago in another thread. They used a Christmas tree stand and inverted the full bottle in it. Probably used the screw thingies to stabilize the bottle.

FWIW

 

[JNorth]

This is what I did with a 3 gallon water jug and a small christmas tree stand....
When I took the picture it didn't have the cap. I've since added the cap with the whole in the middle punched out to help control water glugs. So far it has worked like a charm and we've not had any issues with algae growth. We've also cleaned up the stand a bit (we were in a hurry when we originally made it).