All 'Bout Chickens Horizontal Waterer Question

[Blooie]

After a week of having chicks the water has been the most irritating thing! This is definitely something I'm going to consider when they get moved out!

Why wait? They can use it right now, very successfully.

 

[kristaschics15]

Because I don't have the materials or set up currently to do it. They are too small for my crate I'm going to move them into and I don't have chicken wire to surround it yet, once I move them there I can do it. Just going to be some time.

 

[Blooie]

Ah, that makes sense!! I sure understand your frustration, though. I drove myself nuts cleaning and refilling waterers too many times a day - if there's a way to get something into the waterer, and if there's a way to slosh it and spill it all over the brooder, they'll find it! I finally went to TSC, bought a package of nipples, and stuck a couple on the bottom of a plastic powdered iced tea container! I ran a piece of wood across the top of the brooder and hung that thing up from there. When the day finally comes for you to move them, you'll be so happy!!

 

[kristaschics15]

That sounds like a good solution (wood across too) and may have to try that! As they get bigger it's requiring more water cleanings a day.

 

[jetdog]

Yes, I got the vertical ones, which is what I was looking for. What's the benefit of horizontal ones?

I ended up making two smaller hanging bottles to go in my brooder and the chicks went right to it. They figured it out faster than the adult hens, that's for sure!

The benefits of the horizontal nipples are in cold weather they don't freeze because they don't hold any water inside like the vertical ones do, they will freeze open and drain all the water out and make a huge mess, with a small stock tank heater I've had great success with the horizontal ones.

 

[Blooie]

The benefits of the horizontal nipples are in cold weather they don't freeze because they don't hold any water inside like the vertical ones do, they will freeze open and drain all the water out and make a huge mess, with a small stock tank heater I've had great success with the horizontal ones.

Believe me, if it gets cold enough the horizontal nipples will freeze....all the way to the floor.....even inside the coop with a stock tank heater in the bucket. <sigh> This was our cold snap routine - start the coffee, get into our 20 below zero clothes, take the heat gun, and thaw the nipples and melt the icicles.


The portion coming from the nipple had already been de-iced when this pic was snapped. The icicle had not.


Thawing the nipples. Every morning. For days.

That said, I still prefer them to vertical and will continue to use them year round. Our new waterer will have the nipples up higher. The water in the bucket never froze, so deicing the nipples still beat the heck out of slogging outside in sub-zero weather carrying a 5 gallon bucket of water.

 

[jetdog]

I'm glad mine didn't freeze at all but I guess with the coldest and snowiest winters new england has ever had I might have just been lucky, with the waterer inside the coop and out of the wind chill it greatly reduced it,I hang mine maybe sitting on a cold cement block makes the difference between freezing or not.

 

[kristaschics15]

Makes me very happy to live in the deep south!

 

[Blooie]

I'm glad mine didn't freeze at all but I guess with the coldest and snowiest winters new england has ever had I might have just been lucky, with the waterer inside the coop and out of the wind chill it greatly reduced it,I hang mine maybe sitting on a cold cement block makes the difference between freezing or not.

I think you hit on part of the problem, jetdog. The reason the waterer was up on bricks was because at the time we had one who had trouble getting water if it was hung at the proper height. Won't make that mistake again - he stood in the resulting puddle when it was 17 below zero and severely froze his feet. Tried to help him one way and hurt him in the process. Look at the pictures and to further complicate matters, the bricks were hollow inside...cold brick surface and total air flow under that bucket. Stupid, stupid, stupid. But I'm only stupid once - after that I get profoundly more smarterer.

Another member on another thread where I showed these pictures had gone out with one of those point and shoot temperature probes and found a significant temperature difference between the water at the bottom, the center, and the top of the water level in his heated system. So I am raising the level of the nipples as a place to start. The theory we decided on was that the warmer water would transfer to the metal of the mechanism.

 

[BBrady]

After a week of having chicks the water has been the most irritating thing! This is definitely something I'm going to consider when they get moved out!

I have been so excited about getting chickens for like a year, and now I've had them for a week, I can't believe the stuff that should be standard for care. Why does every person have to do so much research to figure out how to do something simple like get water to the animals? Ahhh! Dogs and rodent pets get essentially bottles with nipples. Everyone else should too. I wish I had read this post two weeks ago...I actually looked at some nipples in the feed store, and considered getting them, but I didn't see bottles that went with them. Now I know why, and I'm going back to get them...