How clean does the water have to be? Give it to me straight!

[ducks4you]

SPRING/SUMMER/FALL
Check water 2x a day
Clean when necessary (scrub algae or other vegetation off with a brush)
Fill whenever empty or close to empty

WINTER
Break up ice and fill 2x a day

WHY is there always MORE animal upkeep in the Winter?!?!?!?

 

[atarunomiko]

Quote:
Caroline, how does that work? I am an avid fishkeeper (just an animal nut in general), so I happen to know that goldfish are some of the messiest fish to keep, because of the amount of poop they generate. They are supposed to reach very large sizes and live for 20+ years, but most don't get to because people are misled by the pet store to believe that they can live in those little bowls.
And don't even get me started on betta vases.

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Anyway, I use a nipple watering system that I MacGuyvered out of aquarium airline tubing and poultry nipples from Randall Burkey (very cheap, like a buck something each). I patterned it after this professional system (only mine is a lot less pretty):

Watering System

There is a cup attachment if you can't get your birds to use the nipples, but I've found it very easy. Once one chicken gets it, everyone else just copies her, and before you know it, they're all old hands (beaks?) at it. But I find having these useful for occasionally mixing in their ACV supplement. *ponders better way of introducing ACV into the delivery system*

You could also show them with your finger, or they have another suggestion here.

And here are how-to instructions, to show you how simple the system is.

Before I set this up, I had grown tired of the litter that was kicked into the regular waterers absorbing and wasting all the water in them, even after putting them up on wood blocks (my babies can kick stuff seriously far and high - anyone up for starting a gallinaceous soccer league?).

I started using the waterers with the ball ends from the LPS that are marketed for ferrets, hamsters, parakeets, etc. At first I chose ones with red balls in the ends because I thought the color would encourage them to peck, but the shiny silver ones are attractive to them, too (and once they've figured out where the water comes from it could be any color). So then I went with the biggest size I could find, 1/2 gallon.

But the system I'm using now is much easier and takes up almost no time at all; I just wipe down the nipples if they get yucky. So far I haven't even had to clean the tubes of mineral deposits because I use a pre-filter for all my water -- the water in my area is really bad, like wrong colors bad.

In the long run it would have been cheaper to just have built this from the get-go. Talk about spending a dollar to save a penny. But both types of nipple drinkers work for all my birds (chickens, turkeys, ducks, geese, guineas, pheasants and quail - even day-olds... even my cull-rescue Jersey Giant who was born blind followed the happy chirping and metallic jingling sounds and was drinking in no time).

It all comes down to bacteria. From fish-keeping I learned that dirt is not the problem. Just as brown water does not always mean dirty water, crystal clear water does not always mean clean water.

It's not the dirt, or even the poop, that endangers our chickens or ourselves, but the bacteria. We need to ingest good bacteria, like in yogurt or ACV, and to eliminate bad bacteria, such as those that cause the dread bird diseases we all worry about. I understand chickens actually need "access" to their own feces (ewwww) in order to maintain the good gut flora which eat the bad ones, such as cocci. So to obsessively clean is actually to put your birds at risk for disease, as others have previously mentioned. Go deep litter method! It's better for birds, AND it allows me to be lazy!

Personally, I don't use chlorine bleach or any products containing chlorine, and the filtration I have removes it from my water for drinking, cooking, and bathing, as well as any for all my animals. I am concerned about the health risk. I use cleaners that are advertised as "natural" to supplement the traditional old-school methods like vinegar, baking soda, lemon and combinations thereof.

I once read that straight-up vinegar actually kills more bacteria than bleach. I have no idea how that's possible, but I'm no expert.
Sorry to write a book there... *shuts up and lets others talk*

EDITED because I am a crack monkey about typos.

 

[CityChook]

Rebekah - It looks like you've gotten some good info on the water. I want to comment on your rain barrel.

I am a big advocate of rain barrel usage, but please be aware of the water that you are collecting. It probably wouldn't be a terrible idea to have the water tested, but in all reality, who is REALLY going to do that (not me.). Water that falls from the sky isn't always "pure" and water that runs off the roofs of our homes is certainly not clean. I have attached an article that I found quite some time ago and saved as it has some good advice on how to use your rain barrel water. Personally, I don't water my vegetable garden or feed the animals with it but it has been great on the flower gardens.

Just my $.02.... I feel that it's always good to just be informed and then make your own decisions on what is best for your situation.

http://home.comcast.net/~leavesdance/rainbarrels/safety.html

 

[Rebekah]

@CityChook: thanks so much for that link! honestly, i never thought of the water picking up contaminants from the roof. the water runs off an original tin roof that we tar and paint with aluminum silver paint every couple of years. living clean is SO HARD! now i'm thinking more about this and am considering an alternative collection method for the barrel.

i grew up 100 feet from an EPA Superfund site, so i rely on regular exercise/weight training and eating organic to make my body strong and able to fight all the diseases i'm surely pre-disposed to getting.

jeez-oh-man, there's always something to worry about

 

[DuckLady]

If we are home, the waterers get rinsed and refilled at least once a day. And thoroughly scrubbed with bleach water once a week.

In hot gross weather when we can't stand there like a soda vending machine and offer cool drinks to every duck on demand all day long, we will add maybe a half capful of bleach per 5 gallon container in the morning to keep algae from growing. That's about 1 tsp or less.

You don't need to add much to do the job.

It is always interesting to test your water, even if you don't need to.

Last time my husband tested our water, we got Britta filter.

 

[luvbiddies]

Quote:
Hi there, why don't you check out my waterer on my byc page. I t might give you an idea for clean water. I had the same problem and did a little research and this is what I've come up with using some ideas from the web. Hope it helps!

Your waterer is awesome. I will make one and let you know how it works. How will it work in winter (freezes here in Michigan), does the plastic milk jug tend to become brittle?

 

[thebroodybunch]

Quote:
I'm with you there. I clean the waterer when it gets emptied and re-fill it every couple of days. I also have a basin in the run that collects rain water.

 

[Pop]

Quote:
and the insulation off of the walls. Actually just about anything that falls or crawls into their area is fair game. but only after a good game of "chicken keep-away".

 

[ldemmert]

The nipple feeders seem great but what happens in the winter? How do you keep the water from freezing? My winters regularly have weeks below freezing and nights to 0 F.

 

[tdkmom]

Nope I must be lazy too. We have a 5 gallon waterer and every other day it gets hosed out and refilled. It sits in a rabbit litter pan to keep the sand from getting wet so we hose it out at the same time. There are 2 pans in the run that we keep filled every day but the ducks use them as mini ponds so they are always dirty even though they have a pond to swim in. As far as winter goes, I'm dreading it! No hose outside then so I'll have to carry the water everyday to them. Takes me back to when I was a kid and had to carry water to the horses way down a hill then up a hill and back down and back up to the house...Uggghhh!