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chickendreams24 said:
I love love your siver laced orps! Do you have BBS orps as well?

Your mottled girl is beautiful! I have two black split to chocolate and mottled cockerals from @Junibutt perhaps we can all work together on some mottled orps?


I'm also curious about this expo you guys are talking about would you guys mind telling me about it?
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I would have to say the expo is geared towards the beginner, but very helpful. The have talks on bee keeping, goats, ducks, and chickens.
Thanks, I only have 1 blue, 1 splash and 1 chocolate that I will put with my Black Orp. Then I might make some SL splits, and some pure blacks, because I have 2 pretty pure black girls also.
 
chickendreams24 said:
Now Faraday40 has gotten us hooked on vertical nipple waterers and we use those for our quail and also for our chicks now but it's not practical for our flock of around 40-50 because of the size of the water reservoir and number of nipples we would need. Plus suspending it at the right level for our large fowl and our bantams.
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Here is an Idea, and it is not my original by the way. Make your waterer (for non freezing weather) from a length of PVC pipe with 10 nipples 1 foot apart. At end have it connected to a 5 gallon plastic bucket. Set pipe at height for large fowl to drink. At every other nipple place a brick, or 2 to provide elevated platform for your banties. This way large chicken drinks from ground, and small drinks standing on a brick. PM me if you could use a 55 gallon plastic barrel. (gratis of course)
 
OK, I went & cut / pasted some of my past posts.
So here are my feeders & waterers.....

My family made me a treadle feeder as a gift the 1st year I had chickens. (Dad built it while sister & mom did the artwork. Lizard pic b/c I used to raise reptiles.) After 4 years it still works, but I have to occasionally reassemble the lever arm. If I did not have it, I would be considering a pre-made metal one. At one point I added a pointed peak to keep the chickens from sitting on it, but that became a hassle. I simply moved it to a less desirable location without a view, so there's less temptation for birds to sit (& poop) on top of the wooden feeder.

* Safety Note: With this feeder, I must keep it open or remove it when very young chicks are in the flock. I never had an accident, but I fear it could smash a chick. Works perfectly to keep mice & sparrows out



The other feeders I have work very well because there's no moving parts. The hens must put their heads completely inside to eat, so there's less waste. I fill it up all the way. As the chickens eat the food from the bottom, more from the top & sides fall down.
I hang them so little critters don't climb up into it & so the chickens do not sit on top (& poop). Not sure if little birds/squirrels could find a way into it or not. I haven't actually seen any try to go inside. I have multiple feeders & hang them in various locations to prevent bullying. I also hang them from trees in the yard (but bring them into the run at night to not feed the wildlife.) I made smaller versions for the chicks, since they're easy & practically free to make.





Below is a smaller chick feeder version made from a nut container. I later added a handle to hang it. Hanging is great because its so easy to adjust the height as the chicks grow. My chicks start to use this at 5 days old. (Their necks need to grow a tiny bit before they can reach the food.)





I cut the female end off the bottom to make a lip for the front.


PS- Neither of these ideas were originally mine. The treadle plans were found here on Backyard chickens & the feeder was from
.

There's no need to buy extra stuff for chicks. IMO- the home made stuff often works better.
For waterers, I use chicken nipples, a drill, & something found in the recycle bin.



Need to drill holes in the cap for the nipples to work properly. Scrap wire, string, clips, etc. used to hang at the correct height

.





****BTW- I really want to see a pic of @chickendreams24
's nipple waterer! I think you could enter a photo/ funny caption contest with it.

For my flock I use 5 gal buckets. In the summer I hang them around the yard. I also put out a plastic waterer from a feed store. (I think the chickens prefer to dip their beaks.)

In winter here, those open waterers are dangerous for frostbite.
My winter set up uses horiz nipples & a heater. (Has auto on & off to keep water liquid.) The heater was the expensive part but we've used it 4 yrs w/o problems. Keeps the water liquid even on those -30'F nights. The 1st winter I used vertical nipples & they leaked when in use, so an ice patch developed below the waterer. They also froze up around the single digits - even though the water in the 5 gal bucket was still liquid. I do not heat the coop at all, so this works well for us.

* Our water has minerals, so some residue had to periodically be cleaned off of the heating element. Last winter as well as this year I filled up gal jugs of water from our sink- which has a faucet mount filter. It worked better than I could have hoped!




Horizontal nipples are better in winter because they do not freeze up easily. On a very rare occasion the metal piece of the nipple may stick/freeze, but I found that the chickens simply pecked at it to get the water flowing again.


*Since we now have 2 bantams, I added a brick on one side as a step for the little ones.

The only place I have found these horiz nipples is online (ebay & amazon) Vertical nipples are easily found in feed stores & big box farm stores, as well as online.
 
haunani said:
Hello from Rockford!
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welcome-byc.gif

Hello from the Chicago suburbs.
 

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