A thought on the waterer. I taught mine to drink out of a rabbit waterer and that works great - no spills and no poop in the water either. It doesn't take long to teach, but I found I needed to teach each of them individually so with 51 it may take awhile
To teach them, take the chick in one hand and the waterer in the other. Dip the chicks beak in the waterer, pushing the bill against the metal ball. Water will drop down and into the chick's beak (you'll know this has happened when they remove their head and tip it back to drink). Repeat several times so they know this is the way to get water. Repeat with the next chick and so on. Once I had given each of mine a lesson, I found they had no problem with returning to the waterer whenever they were thirsty. I still have a rabbit waterer available to them at all times, in addition to shallow bowls of water and have several that seem to prefer this method of drinking.
