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I would gently disagree with the whole spread of disease through the waterers and about "if you wouldn't drink out of it, clean it". My family have been raising chickens for generations and we've never cleaned out the waterers daily, nor would we take a sip out of a waterer even if it had been freshly bleached and cleaned.
These are chickens, folks...they eat their own feces when picking through the bedding. They drink out of any mudhole, seep, source of water they encounter. Wild birds are also drinking out of these sources. The fallacy that wild birds are going to give our flocks disease is something the government would like us to believe...this gives them a reason to ban backyard flocks such as ours.
I've never...I repeat, never had any diseases in my flocks in all these long years. I've kept waterers in the coop and outside, do the swish, rinse and fill and occasionally get the gumption to soap and bleach all water containers on the property...but not often.
You can take that cleanliness too far when it comes to animals and even people. A bird with a healthy immune system shouldn't have any problems being exposed to normal pathogens encountered in the outside environment. In fact, its necessary for them to have these exposures to build antibodies for a healthy immune system.
Its enough to provide fresh water in a reasonably clean vessel, daily if needed but every other day if not. I've seen the birds walk right past the sparkly clean water and drink from a muddy hoofprint.
Just use common sense and you shouldn't have to worry!
You are absolutely right.
