Advice for a fountain / recirculating water

[PopVultureATX]

Hello everyone!

We've been getting some pretty brutal heat in Austin this summer as usual. I've got a small sprinkler that I turn on low for a little while each afternoon so that my hens can enjoy some flowing water and peck around in the mud puddle. With the extra heat, however, I've been turning the water on longer and subsequently racked up a huge utility bill.

Since this is both expensive and wasteful, I clearly need to get a better setup. I've seen things like the Little Giant Poultry Fountain (http://www.jefferspet.com/images/265/M3P1.jpg), but I'm not exactly sure how it works or if it's exactly what I'm looking for. I was thinking of something more along the lines of a more typical fountain, maybe building a small drinking trough and using a fountain pump to keep the water from getting too stagnant (with periodic cleaning).

I'd love to hear if anybody's done something like this, or if you've got some better suggestions. All ears over here! Thanks in advance!

 

[LoneOak]

The Little giant bowl is for drinking water and I don't believe it would work for your situation at all. If I were you I would go to HomeDepot or Lowes or any home improvement store and look in the underground sprinkler section for misters. It sounds like you need something that emits a small amount of water in an aerosol form or mist which would cause the temp to lower in the immediate area where it was being used. I used to have something along this line when I had a small green house and was raising azaleas and other woody plants from cuttings. You had to keep the cuttings moist most all the time but you didn't want large drops of water so misters were the way to go. They also lowered the ambient temp in the greenhouse by nearly 10 degrees when it was really hot outside. They do the same thing in some resort locations where it is real hot, mist the air with water.