California - Northern

[debs_flock]

Hi all, I'm just starting to get ready to build my coop. Got some fancy-shmancy plans coming in the mail. Looks like I'm building a B&B out back, nicer than my house. My question is this... Who has tried, and did/didn't like the waterers that are little red "nipples" hanging off the bottom of a water container that the chickens peck for water? I thought it might be cleaner/dryer that way, but wanted opinions first. Do they get enough water this way and will they "hog" it and keep others away? Also, what is a favorite feeder? I'm looking at making one out of a PVC pipe that you fill from the top and they eat out of cutout holes in the pipe along the base. Any opinions? I want as low maintenance and clean as possible.
Thanks! Demaris

I'm in the process of converting all my pens over to the chicken nipples installed in PVC with a gravity fed holding tank, filled by a float valve and hose.

I'm also converting all my feeders to the PVC ones so the birds can be fed from outside the pen. I've found way less wastage with these feeders as opposed to the typical feeder from the feedstore. One ten foot length of PVC, two elbows, four caps, some zipties for hanging and I have two feeders. Each feeder holds about a five gallon bucket of feed at a time.

 

[DemarisJewelry]

Hi, about your dog's kidney failure. I have a 16.5 year old Basenji with kidney failure. I've been keeping her going, happily, for over two years now on two medicines that I get from Amazon. She's 20 lbs. She takes Azodyl , 2 am and 1 pm, emptied out of the caplets that they come in and put in her food. Azodyl has to be refrigerated. She also takes Epakitin powder, 2/3 scoop am and pm in her food. She's been doing great on these.
She started throwing up her dog food so the vet wanted to calm her tummy and protect the lining from losing too much protein or something like that. So, the vet just added Aluminum Hydroxide Gel 320mg/5ml last week. She get 5ml squirted into her grumpy little mouth before each of her meals. It smells minty and I know she hates it. She also takes one 5mg tablet of Enalapril at night wrapped in a Greenies Pill Pocket. She will also start taking Pepcid OTC 1/2 of a 10 mg tablet 2x a day to protect her stomach and intestines from irritation caused by kidney disease.
She's doing amazing, people are shocked when I tell her age, She acts about 5 years old and begs like mad. We call her "the pushy old broad" ;-)
Ask your vet about this stuff. Let me know if there is anything else I can do to help.
Demaris

 

[PetRock]

Hi all, I'm just starting to get ready to build my coop. Got some fancy-shmancy plans coming in the mail. Looks like I'm building a B&B out back, nicer than my house. My question is this... Who has tried, and did/didn't like the waterers that are little red "nipples" hanging off the bottom of a water container that the chickens peck for water? I thought it might be cleaner/dryer that way, but wanted opinions first. Do they get enough water this way and will they "hog" it and keep others away? Also, what is a favorite feeder? I'm looking at making one out of a PVC pipe that you fill from the top and they eat out of cutout holes in the pipe along the base. Any opinions? I want as low maintenance and clean as possible.
Thanks! Demaris

I tried the nipple waterers but I think that we didn't put it together the correct way. They drip and the birds don't seem to like them. My birds prefer flat bird baths that rest on the ground. Not very clean especially after they all stand in it but that's their preferred place to take a drink. I do have some of the larger poultry waterers that the do drink out of occasionally. For our breeding pens at the farm, we are going to dry the red cups that attach to PVC pipe. I figure that one of these days, we will happen upon the best choice for us. My DH did build some wonderful PVC feeders for my backyard coop and we built the same ones for the breeding pens. There is next to no feed waste (as long as I don't add any BOSS to the feed) and I only have to check the feeders once every week or two. We have 2 short ones in the coop and 2 tall ones in the run.

 

[DemarisJewelry]

Thank you ;-) Demaris

 

[DemarisJewelry]

Thank Debi! Those are cool. About how far up do you have the open ends of the pipe? And does the food go all the way to the bottom or do you block it right below the openings?

 

[MossyoakLane]

Hi all, I'm just starting to get ready to build my coop. Got some fancy-shmancy plans coming in the mail. Looks like I'm building a B&B out back, nicer than my house. My question is this... Who has tried, and did/didn't like the waterers that are little red "nipples" hanging off the bottom of a water container that the chickens peck for water? I thought it might be cleaner/dryer that way, but wanted opinions first. Do they get enough water this way and will they "hog" it and keep others away? Also, what is a favorite feeder? I'm looking at making one out of a PVC pipe that you fill from the top and they eat out of cutout holes in the pipe along the base. Any opinions? I want as low maintenance and clean as possible.
Thanks! Demaris

We just installed a gravity fed chicken nipple system. So far, we love it, and so do the chickens. I do have one chicken who likes to "play" in it. She will press her beak against it and watch it run down and onto the ground

It did take a day or 2 of fighting leaking issues....but now we are good to go.

We also made a bucket feeder using a bucket and a planter saucer. We found the instructions on here and tweaked it a bit to suit our needs.

 

[lawatt]

We had to use poison too, we had them in our roof and it was insane. They were tearing up insulation and I was afraid they get wires. We got one that is safe for cats, and rogue did eat a few rats that she found that were poorly and was fine. I took away what I found, but from her satisfied looks it was not all of them.

do you happen to remember what kind it was? i've got a resident roof rat (or two, or...) in my house's walls, my cat Henry caught/ate several of them our first winter here, but he hasn't caught any in a while, but i still hear them... would like to hear them less, but want to make sure not to harm the feline investigators...

thanks!

 

[ronott1]

Have you tried the Just One Bite product? I had good luck with it several years ago with field mice, but I have it handy now because I KNOW the chickens attract rats, and mice so I am putting it out in in a home made bait station early. Those big plastic bait stations are expensive. So I am going to use some pipe and elbows to keep out other critters and hopefully that will work.

Thank you for the tip!

I will look up the one bite and see if it will go into my bait station.

 

[Ali707]

I tried the nipple waterers but I think that we didn't put it together the correct way. They drip and the birds don't seem to like them. My birds prefer flat bird baths that rest on the ground. Not very clean especially after they all stand in it but that's their preferred place to take a drink. I do have some of the larger poultry waterers that the do drink out of occasionally. For our breeding pens at the farm, we are going to dry the red cups that attach to PVC pipe. I figure that one of these days, we will happen upon the best choice for us. My DH did build some wonderful PVC feeders for my backyard coop and we built the same ones for the breeding pens. There is next to no feed waste (as long as I don't add any BOSS to the feed) and I only have to check the feeders once every week or two. We have 2 short ones in the coop and 2 tall ones in the run.

I was interested in the little red cup waterers too, and then I saw an article here somewhere on this gigantic forum that said they were having issues with them not lasting. Are they the ones that have a little red cup and a yellow valve in the middle and the chicken pecks at the cup/valve and the cup fills with water? If so, those are the ones that I was considering until I have read that more than a couple of people say they don't last long and the valve breaks and all the water runs out or continuously depending on your set up.

 

[debs_flock]

I was interested in the little red cup waterers too, and then I saw an article here somewhere on this gigantic forum that said they were having issues with them not lasting. Are they the ones that have a little red cup and a yellow valve in the middle and the chicken pecks at the cup/valve and the cup fills with water? If so, those are the ones that I was considering until I have read that more than a couple of people say they don't last long and the valve breaks and all the water runs out or continuously depending on your set up.

Mine only problem with them, would be they have to be taken down and wiped out periodically.