Home-grown watering - pics and math

[afveteran88]

How far off the ground is it mounted?
What if you needed to clean it out. Did you glue your 90 on the pipe?
Thanks
BTW it looks like it works great. Thanks for the very detailed pictures.

 

[quintinp]

Quote:
The pvc waterers don't really need to be cleaned, but a little teaspoon of bleach in the water will keep the slime from coming, and the pipes aren't clear, so they won't grow algae. And the chickens can't access the water any other way than through the nipple, and if the nipple gets dirty, you can hose it off every week or so.

 

[cptbahama]

afveteran, you noticed that, eh?

Yes, I did glue that 90 to the pipe. If I have to clean it out ever, I will have to remove the wood piece around it. It is held in place with 6 screws. But like the other poster said, I add a little calcium hypochlorite (not bleach).

So far this set-up is working very well. But it was almost 70 degrees yesterday so the freezing issue has not been a factor. The weekly maintenance time has been drastically reduced.. which is awesome. I only have to fill that water tank once about every ten days.

The tank is about 18" off the ground. The chickens started pecking the nipples right away.

 

[afveteran88]

Thanks for the reply. I really want to cut down on my watering chores so this is going to be my next project.

 

[galanie]

A simple solution would be to make the hole big enough for the end cap to fit through when you want to remove the thing. A piece of inner tubing could be used around the gap if one were concerned about it.

 

[bairo]

Quote:
The pvc waterers don't really need to be cleaned, but a little teaspoon of bleach in the water will keep the slime from coming, and the pipes aren't clear, so they won't grow algae. And the chickens can't access the water any other way than through the nipple, and if the nipple gets dirty, you can hose it off every week or so.

Try Oxine instead of bleach. Safer, more effective, actually makes water taste better.

 

[ajlynco]

You might try using an aquarium heater. It could be inserted into the waterer thru the endcap/90* elbow. I've read that if any freeze occours, it's at the nipples but as soon as the chooks peck it the water flows and melts any residule ice on the nips. As Wyododge informed me one time, the heat tape isn't gonna be as effecient as a submersed heater' Good luck

Quote:

 

[Uncle Marc]

How far off the ground or floor do I need to put the pvc pipe with the nipple in it?

 

[MedChicken]

This is awesome! I was planning to use a system with a 5-gal bucket hooked up to PVC pipes and nipples, but this looks MUCH simpler!

Does it still work well when the water level drops, or do you need to maintain a certain amount of water in the pipe to keep the pressure up?

 

[afveteran88]

Ok, So I finished my PVC waterer today and it turned out great. I got a 6 ft pipe cable heater and taped it on the side and pluged it into my outlet. I mounted it about 24" of the ground and filled it up. It tokk the girls about 5 min of looking at it before they figured it out. I'm thinking I will only have to fill this up once every four days. I made mine out of 6" pvc so it would hold more.
Thanks for the idea. I will post pictures soon.