Fish in My Chickens' Water Bucket?

[WalkingWolf]

Quote:
Depending on how many chickens the OP has they really do not need a 5 gallon bucket of water. I have 100 chickens and together they probably drink about 5 gallons of water. Clean water daily is important, bacteria from wild birds, our own birds grow in the water if left. Green Algae is actually a good thing as it eats the bacteria to survive, it cleans and oxygenates the water. Red algae is a bad thing from what I understand it carries the toxin that kills fish often called red tide.

Rather than 1 or 2 five gallon buckets I use several 2 gallon buckets changed daily, and one is sanitized each day. I lose about 1/4 of water in each every day before changing from evaporation and usage. In total I have 10 buckets in pens and scattered through out the yard. I want them to have access to clean water wherever they are playing. It takes about 1/2 hour to change water daily. It takes 1/2 hour for feeding nightly, that is only 1 hour total time, not that much to ensure healthy chickens.

There is probably no more water used for this than the water to take one shower or one load of laundry. Unless water is at a premium where you are located I would say it is worth it.

 

[Dixiedoodle]

I can not answer your questions about the fish BUT try putting you water bucket in a really shady spot. Algae blooms much quicker with lots of sun light, even in ponds the algae doesn't grow as quickly in the shady ponds..I hope this helps..


Fish are usually placed in a water source to help with mosquito larva .Dixie

 

[Mahlzeit]

Feeder guppies are cheap if you want to try the fish in the water method give it a shot. If it doesn't work you can always change methods. Let us know how it works.
As for clean water for the chickens. I always provide mine with clean water but it they find a nasty dirty puddle 9 times out of 10 they don't even look at the clean fresh water. Same with the dogs. That hasn't killed them yet.

 

[terri9630]

I use one of these hooked to a regular water hose and mounted at chicken height. Just take a sponge and wipe it out when dirty.

http://www.horse.com/Automatic-Waterer-BSE30.html

 

[Year of the Rooster]

I would NOT recommend using a Plecostomus (sucker fish). They can grow big and they produce a LOT of waste. I don't think the chickens would be too happy drinking water with fish poop in it.

 

[Akane]

5gallons is too small for most anything. The common plecos get several feet long and they are poop machines. They digest very little of the algae they eat and poop large amounts back out which are full of broken down nutrients for more algae to grow on. Common goldfish also get several feet long and should be in a pond not any type of tank long term. Fancy goldfish should be in 30gallons minimum for the first fish and 10gallons per fish after that. A properly kept pleco or goldfish can live 50+ years so if you see them dying before at least 20 you are doing something wrong. Overall fish produce more waste than the algae they eat and give off great ammonia and other "fertilizers" for algae so it's counter productive. In too small of container like a bucket unless it's only a couple inch fish they'll also poison themselves from their own waste and respiration. The only time fish are useful is eating mosquitos out of stock tanks and other larger areas of water.

If you want to control algae in a bucket use something such as acv like others mentioned or clean the bucket more often. Really though algae helps filter water and clean it so unless you've got bga-blue green algae, which is not actually a plant and can be toxic, there's no reason to get overly concerned about algae.

 

[Garden Gal]

"Goldfish get their oxygen from the surface of the water, so would most times be at the top of the bucket. "

Not that it is really important to the topic, but all fish absorb oxygen from the water through their gills. If any fish, gold fish, bass, carp, etc... are at the surface of the water "sucking air" it is due to depleated oxygen levels in the water.

I personally think a fish in a small five gallon bucket is not the best idea... fish, like chickens, have needs and requirements (non chlorinated water, oxygen, balanced pH, etc...)

There are non-toxic products which can be used in bird baths which inhibit the growth of algae but are not harmful to birds, but I still think the best idea so far is the apple cider vinegar; it is beneficial to the chickens AND decreases the growth of algae.

Keep in mind, although algae may look bad, it is simply a single celled plant.

 

[Wokawidget]

Hi,
I have a small pond for my duck and chickens. We have fish, small ghost carp, goldfish and shubumpkins, in there and apart from the odd look from the duck the fish are completely ignored...the fish are all over 2" in length.

I would seriously not recommend putting plecs or other sucker fish in there. The reason being is that they have very large, very sharp spines just behihnd their gills and on their fins. These are used for defence. When the fish were inside in a fish tank, before the pond, I got a plec (suckerfish) to clean the fish tank. This plec sat still at the bottom and as the goldfish was sucking up pebbles is accidentally sucked up the plec. In defence th plec stuck it's spines out and skewered the goldfish. It had 2 spines that had gone through it's mouth and right through it's gills. The plec was well and truely stuck and it was impossible to dislodge without killing both fish. Very shortly after the plec died...still stuck in the goldfish.
In the end we had to get a knife and tweezers and "operate" on the goldfish to remove the dead plec.

So, from what happened here it could be quite possible for the plec to get stuck in the chickens throat, which I am assuming would not be a good thing.

Woka

 

[ranchhand]

Quote:
Non-chlorinated water. Dechlorinator isn't cheap. Clean water and shade are a lot cheaper. I use dishpans, and rinse and change every other day, or more if they're yucky. Once a week they get scrubbed, it seems to be the least labor intensive way to do it.

 

[Akane]

I have a well so I always forget the chlorine part.

Fish are very particular about their water. Gasping at the surface can be a sign of too little oxygen or a lot of other things as well. Too much waste building up in the water. Sudden change in temperature or water parameters such as if you top off evaporated water without changing any out for a long time the water will get continually harder since minerals do not evaporate with h2o. When you do finally change the water or an animal drinks a lot on a hot day and you refill a lot it can shock the fish and cause them to gasp at the surface or become inactive and die. Keeping fish alive in a 5g bucket when you have no experience with fish is not likely to happen and quite likely to torture some fish.