Auto-Waterers anybody?

[Obsessive]

Anybody know of some designs for a automatic waterer for a chicken tractor?

Ive seen some designed out of gravity-feed rain barrel size.
It would need to be able to water about 100 chickens

(and if it could tie into a roof to havest rain water....+1)

 

[kennedyscochins]

I put together a waterer and it is amazing! I haven't had to water my chickens for weeks! okay, this is what I did

first I bought a rain barrel. The rain barrel must have a lid with the two bung holes on it (yes, they are called bung holes-my brother died laughing when I told him!) You will have to go to a hardware store and get what is called a "nipple" or "adapter". This is a 1.5-2 inch piece that screws into the bung hole on one end and into a garden hose with the other end. You will need to drill a hole through the bung hole part that has the threads on it for the "nipple" to attach too. This allows an opening for water to come out of the barrel into the garden hose. Then I bought a rubber bowl feeder at tractor supply (this is just a rubber bowl that is made not to tip over if chickens stand on the edges of it). Also bought an automatic waterer that you can attach to the rubber bowl. This is cheaper than buying a ready made waterer already attached with a bowl. The garden hose from the rain barrel with attach directly into the automatic waterer. Turn the rain barrel on it's side with the bung hole that has the garden hose attached at the bottom and the other bung hole at the top. You can either drill a hole through this bung hole to allow air in for a vacuum or just unscrew the entire bung hole cap. If you want to fix it so that it can catch rainwater, you will need to cut a hole out of the side of the barrel once it's laid down and place it under a downspout. Oh, the barrel must be put on something that will make it higher than the water bowl so that it will flow by gravity.

Price list:
rain barrel- $11.00 P.S. Make sure you don't get one that's had chemicals in it that will hurt the chickens.
nipple- about $3-4.00
10 ft. garden hose-$6.00 don't get a long hose if you don't have too because its hard for the water to flow through all of it.
automatic waterer-$8-9.00
rubber bowl- $5.00

It may seem like a lot at first, but it is really easy to do and so worth it!

 

[Obsessive]

GREAT!

That is perfect! I could prob. find some rain barrels, or maybe even large, plastics drums (like you said, minus the chems.

) somewhere free too.

That seem like a great design. I'll try it