Ideas on waterers

[tickbait]

We have 3 buff orpingtons and 5 white leghorns for pets that will bring us breakfast. They are 2 months old and we'd like to build a gravity waterer that can supply water for at least a week. I'd like to use a 5 gallon bucket for supply and I'm leaning towards the fountains or the bells and I'd like it to be plastic so we could add apple cider. The coop is too far from the house to lay plumbing.

 

[trilyn]

Instead of doing the fountains or the bells, why not mount the 5 gallon bucket and put 3 nipples on the bottom? Check out my byc page for further deets on the nipples. They work great and you won't have to clean out messy waterers!

ETA-Destiny has a point. This time of year it will scum up real fast. You could make an auto waterer with the 5 gallon bucket using a toilet float. There's a few threads on byc that refer to that. Good luck!

 

[destiny_56085]

How do you expect them to have cool, clean drinking water by the end of the week? It summer and I know we have to change all our waterers at least daily or they get warm and scummy. We also have ours raised so they don't kick bedding in them. Sounds like a haven for bacteria to me....

 

[briteday]

If you build the 5 gallon bucket with a toilet float valve aned 3-4 nipples on the bottom, attach it to a garden hose (you can buy a short (12") hose near the toilet floats that is normally used to connect the float to the water supply pipe in the houes. Basically you need to make the transition from whatever the fitting size on the float is, to the 3/4 garden hose.

Once you have it attached to the garden hose you can either leave it on at a trickle so it refills as needed. Or you can set the float high enough to provide 1-2 day's worth of water and just turn the hose on to fill every few days.

I don't seem to have problems with scum in my buckets as the lids are on (but leave them loose so as NOT to form a vacuum if you want gravity feed for the nipples) and I add a bit of ACV every few days to a week. I think you could also add a bit of bleach to the water (like a tablespoon or so) to keep bacterial growth down. But other than not clogging the nipples...I don't worry too much about the water as chickens will drink the filthiest water I have ever seen. I'm not sure it's good for them but mine seem to suffer no harm from an occasional drink from water that is full of poop.

I'm also hoping that a bird bath immersion heater will keep it from freezing this winter.

 

[purpletree23]

They need fresh water every day and twice a day when it is hot. The waterers get slimy in a hurry in warm weather. Why do you want to provide water for a week when you have to go out to the coop to get the eggs and feed them once a day?

 

[tickbait]

Thanks for the ideas. These are all concerns of mine and I need a crash coarse even after I've read all the past post to this regard. We live in KS and we do have extreme weather. We are going out of town for a week to be a beach bum in the Florida Keys. Somebody has to do it so we'll take one for the team here. I do have two neighbors that can help but I wanted to make sure they've got water, good intentioned neighbors or not. I was kinda overwhelmed by reading all the old posts but was looking at the fountains or the bells because they seemed simple but I do like these recent posts. Today I'm building the run in 90 degree weather. The ladies need to be outdoors. Thanks.

 

[write2caroline]

When I was really little, my grandpa had a beef ranch. He kept the troughs clean by keeping gold fish in them. They ate the scum and algea. The cows didn't seem to mind.

I am wondering if you had a big enough tank from which to hold the water - you could figure out a way to keep it filled use the toilet thingy to keep it from emptying out and some hose lines with nibs from which the chickens could drink.

I betcha there is someone on this forum smarter than me that could figure it out.

Cal
Jax FL

 

[Gwen]

How do the chickens get the water from these?

http://www.randallburkey.com/PKG-12-UNIVERSAL-POP-BOTTLE/productinfo/4449/

Moving my little flock to their tractor this afternoon. They're 6 weeks old today. Hopefully they'll be fine out there with no heat lamps. Kinda nervous.

So now am investigating feeders and waterers.

 

[briteday]

There's a little cup that fits between the bars, fed from the bottle.

With 7 chickens in a tractor though...we have 6 silkies in an A-Frame tractor and we LOVE the push in nipples from FarmTek. We used some 1 gallon plastic juice bottles (pretty rigid plastic) and use a coat hanger to hold them to the wire. The bottles can be changed out as needed or you can easily fill them from the outside of the coop. The mouth on our bottles is large enough that we can put ice cubes made in Dixie cups on the hottest days. Or sometimes we just put an extra bottle in the freezer (be sure the part with the nipple(s) is not covered by the ice or it will freeze = no water to the nipple) and it lasts quite a few hours in the hottest part of the day.

The shipping from FarmTek is not cheap so order more than you think you'll need.

There is a post somewhere in here with specific instructions about drilling the hole to be the proper size, etc.

 

[Gwen]

Does FarmTek sell any type of plastic bottle that can be used with the nipple that might come with an attachment to the coop/run?