How do you get water and food to your chickens? (Share your storys!)

[lghrnlvr]

I do it the old fashion. tote it by hand lol. the girls have the bottom 6inches of a 5 gallon bucket for water and i use a milk jug cut in half to scoop food and throw it to them morning and night.
i prefer to do it this way because it makes me slow down and check out the birds. make sure everyone is happy and healthy

 

[lghrnlvr]

I do it the old fashion. tote it by hand lol. the girls have the bottom 6inches of a 5 gallon bucket for water and i use a milk jug cut in half to scoop food and throw it to them morning and night.
i prefer to do it this way because it makes me slow down and check out the birds. make sure everyone is happy and healthy

 

[NinetreesMom]

Just this spring I deep-sixed our classic plastic tank-and-tray style waterer (even on a block it got dirty quickly, not to mention the algae, etc. that grows rapidly in the hard-to-clean tank, and I got tired of it!) and built a nipple bucket. It was incredibly fast and easy, using nipples I ordered online and following their directions. Done in 5 minutes. For my four hens I only fill the bucket half full and refill it once a week to keep the water fresh. No mess, no muss, easy to fill, and my girls were using it like pros within a day. I am definitely a nipple convert. Have I raved enough?

 

[Mr MKK FARMS]

Just this spring I deep-sixed our classic plastic tank-and-tray style waterer (even on a block it got dirty quickly, not to mention the algae, etc. that grows rapidly in the hard-to-clean tank, and I got tired of it!) and built a nipple bucket. It was incredibly fast and easy, using nipples I ordered online and following their directions. Done in 5 minutes. For my four hens I only fill the bucket half full and refill it once a week to keep the water fresh. No mess, no muss, easy to fill, and my girls were using it like pros within a day. I am definitely a nipple convert. Have I raved enough?

Thats awesome!

 

[MsChickenMomma]

Currently I use a 3 gallon bucket for their water. It gets dirty, but I like it better because it gives me a reason to go out to the coop, and it's simple to clean and refresh. The hanging waterers have always been such a hassle for me :/

For their feed I just have a hanging feeder. They have been wasting a lot of feed with it lately. Every time they jump down from the roosts they jump into it and knock a bunch of feed out.

Once the weather warms up we have plans to build them 3 PVC feeders. I have read that these work really well for birds who like to waste their feed.

 

[Mr MKK FARMS]

Currently I use a 3 gallon bucket for their water. It gets dirty, but I like it better because it gives me a reason to go out to the coop, and it's simple to clean and refresh. The hanging waterers have always been such a hassle for me

For their feed I just have a hanging feeder. They have been wasting a lot of feed with it lately. Every time they jump down from the roosts they jump into it and knock a bunch of feed out.

Once the weather warms up we have plans to build them 3 PVC feeders. I have read that these work really well for birds who like to waste their feed.

Nice! That sounds like a great plan!

 

[Weasleymum]

Right now I only have two chickens, in a tractor-style coop (except they're free-ranging the yard most days). They have a one-gallon waterer, I just refill it with the hose every day. Their feed I just dump on the ground. Really, the only hard part about the food is the fact that I drive to a town 45 minutes away to get it.

There are big plans in the works for more birds and a bigger, permanent coop, and that one will involve a 'watering system' with chicken nipples, and a backup watering system, and some kind of covered, protected food container. Last summer, we lost 3 girls (the better part of our whole flock) due to a watering mishap, so we're more than a little paranoid about water now. (They were free-ranging and we'd moved the waterer to a shady part of the yard that they hung out in the most, to keep it cooler and closer to them, since it was really hot. But the girls were still using the coop to lay in, and they got trapped in there because the gate to the coop blew shut. So they were in the coop/ run, and the only water was out by the butterfly bush... it still makes me sick and guilty to think about. My poor girls.

Almost decided to just give up on keeping chickens anymore...

 

[NinetreesMom]

That would be disheartening! I am glad you decided to keep at it. Our dog killed one of our four chickens last year, and seriously injured another one (who miraculously recovered after lots of nursing care), and I almost had the same reaction. I know they are going to die eventually (especially in our predator-rich environment), and we are even considering raising some meat birds, but when they die senselessly it really hurts, especially when I felt like I could have prevented it. We have a similar free-range situation, so after reading your post I think I will save my old tank waterer for use in the yard and leave the nipple bucket in the coop. At least your experience may save others from the same misfortune!

 

[blacklab23]

Right now we have 3 sets of chickens:

For the big girls we have their food/water in their coop. Feed in a homemade pvc pipe feeder and water in a large pan that I change every day. We let them out during the day so they graze the yard & we keep a galvanized waterer under our deck so it stays cool.

For our "teen" chicks: they have a chicken tractor that's raised up and we have hanging feeders/waterers under the coop, and then a gallon waterer/trough feeder inside for nighttime.

For the peeps under the heatlamp: we have a gallon waterer and the starter feeder w/ a mason jar.

I'd like to try the nipple waterers in the future b/c they seem pretty easy to assemble and take care of.

 

[Weasleymum]

That would be disheartening! I am glad you decided to keep at it. Our dog killed one of our four chickens last year, and seriously injured another one (who miraculously recovered after lots of nursing care), and I almost had the same reaction. I know they are going to die eventually (especially in our predator-rich environment), and we are even considering raising some meat birds, but when they die senselessly it really hurts, especially when I felt like I could have prevented it. We have a similar free-range situation, so after reading your post I think I will save my old tank waterer for use in the yard and leave the nipple bucket in the coop. At least your experience may save others from the same misfortune!

That's just it! We've lost several other chickens-- to dogs, to hawks, and one we think to a cat, and each time there's some guilt about what we could have done differently. But these were totally our fault, no way around it.