How do I keep chickens off the waterer?

[mxschwartz]

Hi!

So I bought my $30 waterer....beautiful galvanized metal. Just like you imagine a chicken waterer should look, right? The tube with the little handle on top. SOld on this very website.

Well, one of my hens has taken to standing on top of it and pooping directly into the water below.

I am mesmerized. How could the archetypical design be so flawed? Why am I now being forced to come up with a retrofit solution to something that should be part of the design?

Anyway, if you have found a smart solution in the past, please let me know. Or, do I just need to put a tangle of barbed wire on top of it?

Michael

 

[Chicken Fruit]

hang it

 

[gritsar]

Buy a cheap plastic funnel and fasten it to the top, upside down.

 

[Preservation Acres]

Hi Michael,

Jerry here. Can you hang it from somewhere?

Send me the model name, so I can look up a pic of it online.

Good luck.

 

[ldemmert]

try a funnel or a milk jug with the bottom cut out so it sits over the handle.

 

[Preservation Acres]

gritstar has my idea. Hang it with the rope going through an upside down funnel.

 

[mxschwartz]

It's going to way a TON when full of water. I'm trying the milk jug idea and will report back soon. Thanks for the QUICK replies!

 

[onthespot]

I tied three empty milk jugs together and hang it right over the top of the waterer so there is no place for them to sit, perch, even sideways, lol. It is all about buiding a habit, too. Once they find somewhere else to sit, they won't go back to the waterer after you take away the milk jugs if there are better places to perch. If there are not better places to perch, get busy building some or you will be fighting this fight forever.