Chicken water nipples reviews?

[mmmooretx]

Ordered a set of 5 from ebay today, and they shipped today. First items ordered for my new coop...

 

[mmmooretx]

Just for a chuckle these were the first hardware items ordered for my coop. First item ordered was the plans for "The Garden Coop". Really looking forward to having some chickens at my house!
Thanks to all that have helped me!
Mike

 

[chad-o]

All I can say is you will not be sorry you went horizontal.

 

[mallege]

I definitely recommend the horizontal nipple feeders from Rich. George

 

[bcboy]

You don't ship to Canada?

 

[pdirt]

I installed a nipple system but the girls won't use them. They only like their old watering can. I took it away after a few days and they were clearly very thirsty. I thought I had the nipples installed too low so I raised them to slightly above their normal eye level. No luck. They still ignore them. ??

Any advice?

Sam

Sam - Usually thirst will drive them to figure it out. Did you try flicking one of the nipples to release water drips while a chicken was watching you? That's what worked for me...one chicken saw me do this (I saw the "lightbulb" go off in her head!) and within 30 minutes she was drinking...and others learned from her.

When you say you "took it away after a few days", what do you mean by this? What did you take away after a few days?

If you had both watering options available, they won't use the new one if the old one is present. You have to remove all other sources of water EXCEPT for the nipple system. I'm not clear from your message if that was something you had tried or not.

Try again once your flock has rehydrated themselves for a couple days.

 

[LoneOak]

You don't ship to Canada?

Who are you asking? If you are trying to get to Rich about the horizontal nipples he doesn't post here much anymore. You need to contact him through his ebay account. For some reason this forum won't let me post a link to it at this time. His ebay seller number is 195319531. Go to Ebay and put that number in the search box and search for seller.

 

[LoneOak]

I agree with pdirt above. The number one rule for teaching chickens how to drink out of any new water system is to completely remove the old water system. The can have only one source of water or they will always continue to drink from the first one they had and are used to.

The number one rule for teaching chickens how to drink from nipples is to remove all other sources of water, let me repeat that, the number one rule is to remove all other sources of water!!

 

[mmmooretx]

I ordered one set of five which shipped within one day of order and it arrived very quickly, very good support! I do not have a coop or chickens yet, but as an engineer the design is simple, very clever, and it appears that they will work fine. What I do like about the horizontal over the vertical is the ability to set the bucket down without a prop for filling.
Thanks for a great product.
Mike

 

[LoneOak]

Quote:
Mike, start your baby birds, when you get them, on the water nipples on about day 2 of bringing them home. It is real easy to get the little chicks to start drinking out of the nipples. Just show them where its at and keep the sliver pieces just above eye height and they will soon be hooked. Don't forget to remove all other sources of water--chicken water rule #1!

I built a little gravity feed system in my brooder out of PVC and some back yard engineering to hook up a 2.5 gal jug I had. I drilled a hole in the bottom and used a UniSeal to put pvc into the jug. You could use any number of systems to hook the nipples up to a gravity feed bucket or jug. I like it better than a bucket with nipples in it, the auto system Rich sells on Ebay is the same idea but done professionally unlike my shade tree operation.

One thing I really have come to like about the nipples, is once you have birds drinking off the nipples if you have to move them or change the water system some how, they will always go back to the horizontal nipples but don't have any problems using most any system available. Once the last batch of chicks had started growing I moved them a few times, starting with the horizontal nipples, a spell with standard vertical nipples, a pen with auto cups and finally back to horizontal nipples for the rest of their days.

Where I am winters are very short and we don't have many days that freeze. Which ever system I'm using I drain before freezing weather shows up and for a few days I carry fresh thawed warm standard 2.5 gal waters or double walled galvanized each morning to the pens. When it warms back up and I go back to nipples the birds never have a problem going back.