can I simply fill a bucket with water?

[mshirk]

I've concluded I'm going to just have to fill a dish / small bucket for mine. I've been really stressing about how to water my chickens in the coop. Turns out my sister just puts out dishes of food and water for her flock, after hassles with the chicken feeders / waterers.

Nice to hear others are doing it too. I figure people used to do this before the invention of the feeder / waterers anyway!

 

[Hhoky]

We are using a large 3 qt (I think) metal dog water bowl. Simply because its what I had on hand. However, we keep rabbits in the mini barn with the hens so I needed a water dish that was shallower than a bucket anyway. Although this led me to a great idea somewhere along the way. I started hanging the water bottle for the buns over the bowl for the chickies way back in the beginning. Mostly to help cut down on the dripping and wet mess. Lo and behold the chickens took to using the bottle like they were born to it, on the other side the bunnies now prefer the dish, go figure.
Well... Here in Az it gets hot, I mean really hot, no like really really hot. (LoL) So I freeze 2 liter soda bottles to put out during the day.
(I slip them inside a couple large square bricks to help radiate the chillness.) Well at that point I was refilling the water 3 or 4 times a day. It would get dirty, or just warm and icky. For some reason I wondered if the nipple screw top lid from the rabbit bottle would fit a 2 liter and it did. Wonder of wonders!! Now I hang a frozen bottle out every morning in the summer (Still over the water bowl) which now that its up on a layer of paver bricks (Helps to keep the bowl cool too) doesn't get dirty and I only have to clean it out once a day. And the water stays nice and cool all day long. I gotta say sometimes I can almost here my girls sigh after running across the yard from shade spot to shade spot to get back to the mini shed and drink that cold water.