Cups vs Nipples??

[Eggstatic ChickyDoo]

I use the cups but they are just gravity no nozzle for them to figure out and work perfectly

X2 I have ducks with my chickens and they can't do nipples.

Cleaning the cups is as simple as a 5 second swishing of my finger around to clean it and let it overflow to rinse.

I love the cups for our flock so far (I'm new to this and I've only had them for a month). The ducks still spill quite a bit of water but I have a big plant saucer under the two cups they drink out of the most and it catches the beak spray and gives them a place to dabble. The cups are small enough that the saucer catches everything. They seem to prefer the width of the saucer when they're swallowing their food, which has cut way down on the amount of gunk they deposit in the cups, as well.

 

[lnsoaps]

Mine are all about the nipples. It keeps the coop dry, and the water dust-free.

I agree. I've been watching this topic for a while in various places. And the one thing also I hear is that they don't clog as much as the cups do.

 

[RebekahTN]

Mine prefer the cups vs nipples. They have to be old enough to move the toggle to get water though.

My day old chicks right out of the incubator can do the nipples. My little puts the nipple to the chicks mouth and make sure it gets a drop of water and dips their beaks in the food dish and lets them go. They pick it up immediately.

 

[Punkybrewster]

Guess i should have worded different
My birds prefer the cups.The cups require bigger beaks though to move the toggle on the cup waterers. Once they were more than a couple weeks old they had no problem.

 

[Mouthpear]

My Baby chicks use the vertical nipples the when moved to the coops they use the horizontal spring loaded nipples. I have a Harbor Freight Pump that cycles the water and pushes any debris that would jam the system, then filtering it out. It also keeps the water flowing during winter, which keeps it from freezing.

Video of the Chicken Tractor with the same setup. I still had the vertical nipples then, they are all horizontal now.

Cups get dirty too fast and become a pain.

 

[MimiVC]

I have never really cared about what the chickens do or don't like. I offer them water in one form or the other and they have the option to drink or not. It is easy to tell if they are thirsty. If they don't have one type of drinking water they will soon learn to use something else.

In my 20 years of raising chickens I have seen that the biggest problem in getting chickens to drink out of one kind of waterer or the other is the person responsible for the waterer not the chicken. If water is available they will soon learn how to get it no matter how it is offered!

Great point!

 

[MimiVC]

I use a bottom nipple waterer in the run for 9 months out of the year I can move the tractor without worrying about spilling water.

And in the winter I use a dish style waterer IN the coop with a DIY light bulb heater to keep the water from freezing.

Great idea! What wattage?