Algae in my water bow help

[Okie Amazon]

My Great Uncle used to put a few drops of bleach in his canaries and budgies waterers (he was a commercial breeder). I scrub my buckets and waterers with bleach every few days and just that seems to keep the algae down considerably.

 

[7L Farm]

I change the chickens waters a couple of times a day during this heat & add ice. Sure they can drink out of mud holes. But clean water is essential for healthy animals & humans as well. I personally think it keeps their system clean & they lay better. Each & to his own I'm gonna give my animals clean water .

 

[Hangin Wit My Peeps]

I have also read that adding vinegar to the water helps with this as well. Google this and you will get more info on it and the amounts to add to the water.

 

[BellevueOmlet]

That is one of the main downsides of waterers like those. When I used them, I had to wash daily and DEEP SCRUB them twice/week. It drove me nuts so I switched to waterer cups and have not had algae growth again.

 

[Mia_]

Stick a couple of pennies in there. You can stick them in the area that the water bottle drains into. The alge does not like the copper. I would suggest using pennies made before 1981 because they were solid copper back then.

 

[kowell275]

wow thanks for all the help i will try sum of the ideas.

 

[PooPoo]

A little algae never hurt a chicken. In the warm months its going to happen. I rinse mine out once a week. Just because water is dirty doesn't mean it issnt clean drinking water. A little dirt in the water from a mud puddle is just clean water with a little dirt in it. Stagnant green water is not clean and needs to be avoided. Chickens keep dirt on their feet and will always foind a way to get it in the water, I don't have time to change all of my animals water every day and take care of three kids, work and do my chores around the yard. If I change the chickens, then I would only be right to change the dogs outside, the dog inside, the quail and any other animals I have at the time. I just make sure they don't have nasty water and its kept them all healthy for years

 

[AccentOnHakes]

I've just posted how I cleaned my standard 1-gallon waterer, never used the dog ones so not sure it this will work for yours.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=547108

 

[Sandrachx]

we use black livestock bowls elevated on cinder blocks to water our birds. and we have well water with mineral elements. so, the minerals eventually create a "skin" to the bowls and the algae has been sticking to it. we scrub the bowls every-other-day with dawn dish soap and a dish scrubbing brush. it gets tons of algae out, but i cannot figure how to get it out of the hard minerals because it seems like if a little is left, we've got an algae bloom going by the 2nd morning!

ideas? i like the idea of soaking the bowl overnight with a little bleach water, but i'm still left with the mineral deposits.

 

[Sandrachx]

thanks for the idea of the shade coverer!