Containing water mess

[DuckCommander]

I have my ducks and goose in with the chickens and they sure make an aweful mess with the water. Does anyone have any ideas on how to contain the water spillage/mess? Its winter so seperating the ducks and chickens are not an option till spring....

 

[Kevin565]

What type of waterer are you using?

 

[DuckCommander]

8 gallon fount because of the number of chickens we can't go less...

 

[cluck-darth-peep]

Hi, I have my water container on top of 2 foundation blocks. I have 1 foundation block next to the 2 blocks. This way, the chickens step up on the 1 foundation block, and can reach the water container on top of the 2 foundation blocks. Reason? Having the water container highter off the ground keeps the litter out of the water container. I also put a brown store bag over the top of the water container, this keeps the chickens from sitting on top of the container. Has worked for 3 years.

 

[DuckCommander]

but how do you keep the ducks from making a huge - water to food path?

 

[flood]

I just found this. https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/303629/nipple-waterers-for-ducks

I know the nipples work too but the idea in the link above is very much like what I am doing with my ducklings for now. With them, I am using a long red chicken feeder with many holes, only I am using it for water. It keeps the pen dry and the babies don't run out of water like they do with the quart jar screw-on water tray I tried. I am glad I found your post and did this search! I will implement this idea soon for my older ducks. Hope it helps you too.

 

[americanvalkyrie]

We keep the water outside of the area with the bedding. Our ducks and chickens free range, so the water is kept outside the coop. They really only sleep and lay eggs in the coop, and they don't eat or drink when they do either of those. In the morning I let them out first thing, so they can go get a drink. Before I had ducks I kept the water and food in the coop. But now I don't dare, because of disease. The food is also kept outside of the coop, and locked up at night, because of mice.

 

[nate379]

I use a chicken waterer (like this one https://www.backyardchickens.com/products/1-gallon-poultry-waterer) and put a lid for an old rubbermaid bin underneath.

I'm not sure what temp the ducks would be ok outside? Right now it's fairly warm at 10*, but 50-60mph winds. Earlier this week we had highs in the low single digits.

 

[jdywntr]

In my old coop/run I built a raised platform in a corner, covered it in hardware cloth and put the waterer there. I also installed a drain, similar to a french drain. I dug out the corner first and filled it with rock so that the water would drain easily. Doing this all of the splashing went straight to the ground and they couldn't muddy it up. I had the platform about 2.5 X the size of the waterer. I had runners at the time and I just used a corner horse feeder for water.

 

[RaspyRoosterFarms]

I made a raised platform out of an old box fan that wore out, I'll try to get pics tomorrow.