I made a 5 gallon self filling water bucket for my hens. I got a 5 gallon bucket, a common toilet fill valve, 12" toilet hose (normally goes from the bottom of the toilet tank to the water supply at the wall), a garden hose and a few nipple waterers from FarmTek online.
I drilled the proper size hole in the center bottom of the bucket so that the toilet valve can be connected thru the bottom. Stick the bottom of the toilet valve thru the hole and connect it to the supply hose on the outside of the bucket. The supply hose is to make the transition from the size of the outlet on the toilet valve and to transition to common garden hose which is normally 3/4". Then connect the supply hose to your garden hose. I believe the nipple waterers require a 3/8" hole in the bottom of the bucket. They work on gravity to open and close so be sure to put them on the bottom of the bucket, not out the sides. I put 4 nipples on the bottom of the bucket. (shipping is expensive so I bought more nipples for replacements later) Once you have the nipples installed all you have to do is hang the bucket from the wall so that it is about "head level" with your chickens and turn the hose on. I keep a lid on the bucket but it needs to be loose. If it is airtight the nipples will not work.
The nipples do not drip and I leave the water turned on at the bib so that the bucket refills on its own. My neighbor uses an aquarium heater in the winter to keep the water in the bucket from freezing. My only issue is that I do not have a water bib near the coop so I'm sure the water in the hose is going to freeze when the temps drop. I'm hoping next year to bury a water line so that it won't be a problem in the future.
What I learned is that the chickens will be slow to learn to use the new waterer unless you take away all other sources of water. Then you only have to get one chicken to try it and all the others will follow.
I built the PVC feeders for oyster shell. But with 20 chickens I was filling the feed often. So for layer feed I took an old outdoor plastic garbage can, drilled some 1" holes at the bottom of one side (square can), attached a garbage can lid upside down to the bottom of the can (to catch the food as it comes out the holes...screws and fender washers work fine to attach it), and put the other lid ontop to keep out rodents. (we had a bunch of these garbage cans around and some of them had worn thru the bottom so we had extra lids)
I put the feeder inside the coop on cinder blocks so the girls cannot bill out the food. The PVC oyster shell feeders sit on either side of the layer food feeder on cinder blocks as well. I keep mouse traps set behind the feeder just in case. But have yet to find any rodents in the coop, or even any evidence of rodents...if you know what I mean.
I keep a 3-gallon conventional plastic water bucket inside the coop for days when the chickens cannot go outdoors due to weather. But I only put water in it when they need to use it.
