Avoid Single Use Plastic Water Bottles! Don't Repeat Our Mistake!

[coach723]

Thanks for the warning and info.
I've got the rubber pans also, I don't like to use them in the summer here because they do get hot in the sun and I'm not always there to move them back to the shade. My donkey does like to toss them all over the pasture! They do last a long time. I used galvanized hog pans for awhile, but as with all things galvanized they get yucky after a while. I now use large stainless steel puppy pans, for water and feed mash for the chickens. https://www.jefferspet.com/products/stainless-steel-puppy-pans#more-info
I still use the standard Harris Farms waterers, have been using them for a long time with no problems. I just find them easiest to clean and cheap enough to toss and replace when necessary. With the climate here I found cup and nipple waterers to just be a pain to keep clean, and we have well water and the minerals would just clog them up or make them leak.

 

[Molpet]

This year we had two (and only two) chronic health problems with our flock (all now about 18 months old).

One went from laying eggs with strange deposits/pigmentation that degraded into hardly laying at all, frequent laying of rubber eggs, and increasing lethargy (details in this thread: https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...nyone-seen-this-before.1250379/#post-20098369).

The other was a case of asymptomatic (but very messy and challenging) diarrhea (mentioned in this thread here: https://www.backyardchickens.com/th...erwise-seems-normal-possible-problem.1231772/).

Both chronic issues were challenges for several months. As the heat of the summer settled in we changed our outdoor waterer (homemade) to commercial product that made use of chicken cups to help the girls beat the heat. We were shocked that both conditions showed immediate improvement in a single day and by the third or fourth day, both chronic conditions had completely vanished!

We have made use of two different outdoor waters since and have not had any signs of recurrence of these chronic symptoms in the past four+ months.

The old waterer we replaced was nothing more that a plastic #1 (PET) 1 quart orange juice bottle with horizontal nipples installed in it. It was in service for 13 months, most of which was outdoors where the bottle was exposed to UV and rough weather conditions.

The new waterers are both food-grade HDPE containers (one with chicken cups for heat, the other with horizontal nipples for cold). We think the PET plastic broke down over time releasing chemicals (perhaps phthalates, which are possible endocrine disrupters) into the water that the chickens were drinking. The bottle yellowed and became translucent (rather than clear) so obviously SOMETHING was breaking down.

There is a lot of misunderstanding about plastic bottles and health concerns. Interested parties will have to dig into the matter for themselves. Snopes.com has a good summary write up here:
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/reuse-plastic-bottles/

Here's a write up of phthalates on Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phthalate

Regardless of the EXACT chemical mechanism, this was a serious health risk to the chickens. We feel terrible for not having recognized this sooner.

I would strongly encourage any chicken keepers to make use of food grade HDPE in waterers at a minimum. All other plastics are more risky. BPA-free polycarbonate bottles (e.g. Nalgene PC) might be acceptable. I've been using the same PC Nalgene bottle for 10 years. But I'm obviously much larger than a chicken and only a small percentage of the water I drink passes through that bottle.

Ideally I'd use stainless steel for a chicken waterer, except the thermal conductivity of the metal causes problems in both hot and cold environments. No easy answers here it seems...

But at least the girls are healthy and happy! Please keep them that way and don't do like we did and try to do a waterer on-the-cheap!

We are going to closely monitor how the food-grade HDPE waterers age over the next season. We may need to just budget to replace them every couple of seasons if they show any signs of degradation or the chickens show any unusual health signs. We will be watching very closely as this is a mistake we never want to repeat again!

Good luck out there!

Thank You for posting this.. I know many people make waterers out stuff from the recycle bin. I was thinking about it myself.. not any more and will be tossing some of my old discolored waterers

 

[ronott1]

this is a very good article!

I use food safe buckets for both waterers and feeders

 

[HoopyFrood]

Thank You for posting this.. I know many people make waterers out stuff from the recycle bin. I was thinking about it myself.. not any more and will be tossing some of my old discolored waterers

Of course! We try our hardest to be good chicken keepers, but still manage to make mistakes of course. I'm happy to share anything that might help others avoid pitfalls we found

 

[JanetMarie]

I use stainless steel watering pans, food dishes, and glass chick waterers.

On a larger scale, plastics are one of the worst inventions and a nightmare for other creatures. Plastics are filling the oceans, and filling the bellies of marine birds and killing them slowly.

People survived without plastics for thousands of years. Google and research how the plastic epidemic is destroying the earth. We can live without plastic again, but it likely won't happen on the large scale.

I use glass to store many things in the refrigerator. I plan to radically do more to drastically limit plastic use in my household.

Maybe there could be a thread on ideas?

 

[Molpet]

I use stainless steel watering pans, food dishes, and glass chick waterers.

On a larger scale, plastics are one of the worst inventions and a nightmare for other creatures. Plastics are filling the oceans, and filling the bellies of marine birds and killing them slowly.

People survived without plastics for thousands of years. Google and research how the plastic epidemic is destroying the earth. We can live without plastic again, but it likely won't happen on the large scale.

I use glass to store many things in the refrigerator. I plan to radically do more to drastically limit plastic use in my household.

Maybe there could be a thread on ideas?

Used to be people brought a container to a store to be refilled. Coffee, flour and such. Very few places do something like that. Petco has catlitter buckets that you can bring back for refills..
Other things were wrapped in butcher type paper.. of course that uses a lot of trees.

 

[Mosey2003]

I am flattened! Good that the health of your girls has increased.
»bottle cap waterers« and »pop bottle waterers« for chicks are being sold all over the internet and i thought this would be a good recycling idea.

I would imagine those would be okay for a short term usage indoors, out of sunlight. Not an expert, but I can't see how much would leech over, say, a week per bottle of use.

Good to know about the bigger containers outside.

 

[JanetMarie]

Used to be people brought a container to a store to be refilled. Coffee, flour and such. Very few places do something like that. Petco has catlitter buckets that you can bring back for refills..
Other things were wrapped in butcher type paper.. of course that uses a lot of trees.

Single use plastics are mostly the guilty ones. Especially all those stupid plastic shopping bags. Turtles mistake them for jelly fish and eat them.

Could be difficult buying things not wrapped in plastic, especially when it's needed to keep it fresh and free from contamination.

Putting trash in the right place, helps so it doesn't end up in streams and rivers, and then going into the ocean is a start. But on a cruise ship, I think they dump all of their trash in the ocean. Never been on a cruise and does not appeal to me.

For those who have to drink soda, and bottled water, don't just toss your bottle caps out your window as you're driving, or fast food trash etc. just plain rude and thoughtless.

The problem started when manufacturers started making all of this, and now were all used to the convenience.

Containers can be refilled when purchasing bulk items, like nuts and bulk coffee. Just remember to take them with me shopping.

I'll visit Petco to check on the kitty litter refill buckets.

 

[HoopyFrood]

Single use plastics are mostly the guilty ones. Especially all those stupid plastic shopping bags. Turtles mistake them for jelly fish and eat them.

Could be difficult buying things not wrapped in plastic, especially when it's needed to keep it fresh and free from contamination...
...
I'll visit Petco to check on the kitty litter refill buckets.

I appreciate the thoughts and sentiments, for sure. This thread was intended to give caution to people who are (or are considering) plastic as a watering solution for their flock, nothing more. If you'd like to start a thread encouraging people to avoid the use of plastics, please do! It's definitely a conversation worth having!

But I'd like to keep things on-topic in this thread, please. If I could find a closed, stainless steel waterer that did as good a job at staying thawed outdoors in our chicken run during the rough Maine winters (often sustained sub-zero F temps), I'd do it. But given our situation, it's just not feasible. The plastic waterer does and amazing job, given the constraints we live within on our homestead. And the waterer is made of one of the few plastics (#2, HDPE) that 1.) is actually accepted at our local recycling center and 2.) actually gets recycled into new products, not just incinerated like #1, #3, #4, #5, #6 and #7 usually are around here.

Agreed as a culture we waste an unbelievably huge amount of plastic at a tremendous ecological cost. And I agree we would be better off if everyone made an effort to try to MINIMIZE their use of plastics. That's what we do. Unfortunately we can't hit "zero" but we make that the ideal goal and continually drive closer towards it, year after year.

 

[Anaray]

Thank you for the heads up. What a scary situation, but luckily you found the cause.
It does make you wonder about how much builds up in our own bodies...

Maybe there is a way to have a stainless steel container within an isolating cover.