Chickens drinking dirty stagnant? water

[New Chick In The Backyard]

I put a question mark after stagnant because the definition includes smelly and this water isn't smelly. My A.C. Unit is in part of my chicken run beside my house and drains a lot of water in the summertime. This is the first summer I've had chickens. I always put THREE fresh bowls/small buckets of water in my run for my only 10 chickens but they insist on drinking the water from the a.c. unit. 89-93 degrees everyday. I'm worried and aggravated about this. Is this bad? Any chemicals? What can I do? For the past 30 days there is always a puddle of water there. Some times I try to delute it with the water hose but just makes a bigger mess. Once a month I have to put bleach in my unit from the inside to keep it from cloggin up or trust me it DOES. Everything is new. Silly. It's too low to the ground to put a bucket under so I've been wondering how I'm going to do this or solve the problem this month. I don't want them drinking bleach. Any ideas? I could cut 1/2 the run off but with the water sitting there it might take forever for the bleach to go away. Fortunatly it has rained 3 times kinda washing most of the old water out. A LOT of RAIN. They are probably using the bathroom in it and drinking it. I don't know what on earth the appeal is. Help?

 

[bill3607]

I do not know if it will hurt them. It is humidity (water) being pulled from inside your home. I would not think that is a problem. Now, the bleach, I do not know.

You could try to reroute the drain line to terminate outside the run depending on how difficult it would be and/or how determined you are.

 

[New Chick In The Backyard]

I do not know if it will hurt them. It is humidity (water) being pulled from inside your home. I would not think that is a problem. Now, the bleach, I do not know.

You could try to reroute the drain line to terminate outside the run depending on how difficult it would be and/or how determined you are.

That's an EGG-cellent idea. I don't know if I'll be able to do it but I might be able to just put pvc pipe over the skinny tube and have it go downhill into my front yard. Thank you for your idea! I've been trying to put EGG in my words becuase of the huge excitement of my first baby pullets laying their first eggs this week. LOL! Don't know if they are technically babies or pullets at this point but they'll always be my babies. ha ha.

 

[bhaugh]

My dog liked to drink my a.c. water and it's toxic. Be careful to let your birds drink the water. I had to fence mine off

 

[New Chick In The Backyard]

My dog liked to drink my a.c. water and it's toxic. Be careful to let your birds drink the water. I had to fence mine off

That's scary. I am getting the parts to fix it today or tomorrow. So busy. Before I left home I gave them water with ice cubes in it thinking it might tempt them (it's so hot) and it did some. Some drank from it over and over, a lot more than normal. I think I'm going to start doing this. I used what I think is an oil pan to cover most of the a.c. water up. I'm taking care of the problem but I'm concerned. How toxic is it and what makes it toxic? Did you dog drink it a lot? Did he get sick or someone warned you? Thank you.

 

[bhaugh]

I put a pan underneath then used a plastic fence to cover the opening