homemade waterer question

[hueghy]

I've been looking around at different homemade waterers and I'm going to go with the bucket and planter base method. Everything I have found says drill a couple small holes near top of the bucket with the lid on, fill it up and flip it over in the planter base and the water will fill up to the hole line.
My question is can I drill the holes in the bottom of the bucket so I don't have to turn it over and take the lid off to fill it every time?

 

[BrownEggFan]

I made my waterer with the tray attached to the bottom of the bucket as you described. You will still need to take the lid off (the top) to fill it each time. If you fill the water bucket and don't replace the lid, the water will just keep running out of the tray.

 

[sheaviance1]

I just made both a feeder and waterer out of the 5 gallon bucket. I drilled the holes in the bottom of the bucket, but you have to have a deeper base for it because of the indention in the bottom. They work great. The lid is a little difficult to get off of the bucket though.