How young can you start chicks on drinking cups?

[rtwood42]

I love my chicken watering cup system for my flock, so when a batch of chicks hatched 3 days ago, I built a mini cup watered setup for the brooder. I have been checking on them every couple of hours and manually filling the cups with water. The chicks are drinking that water, but I am not sure if they are able to push the plungers and get more when the cups empty.

Does anyone know if 3 day old chicks can safely use cups, or should I switch to a regular chick waterer for now and then switch them to a cup system in a few weeks?

Thanks,
Ryan

 

[Wyandottes7]

I'm not sure how young chicks should be to start using drinking cups. I gave my chicks drinking cups when they were a couple months old, but that was only because I didn't have the drinking cups until them. I'd probably wait until they are a few weeks old before putting the cups in.

 

[rtwood42]

I went out this morning to put out a standard waterer. I saw three chicks attempting to drink from one of the cups. They were pecking at the top of the yellow plunger and weren't raising their heads to swallow. So it appears to me that chicks under 1 week aren't ready for a cup watering system.

The only post I could find here that dealt with watering cups and young chicks stated that the poster put in a cup watering system when the chicks were a month old and they took to it right away. So I guess I will try again in about a month.

Ryan

 

[aart]

I was just wondering this and started a new thread when a search didn't answer my question.

Still wonders if anyone else will share their experiences.