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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.
