Here is my newest version of an automatic waterer. The larger pipe is 4" SCH 40 and the smaller is 2" SCH 40. It's what I had lying around (I'm a contractor so no shortage of leftovers). Inside the 4" pipe is a toilet fill valve. There is a glue in test plug where the 4" coupler is and that is where the fill valve is located. From the coupler up to the top of the 2" pipe and the 2" pipe including the leg fills with water. With the leg being filled with water it makes it very stable & it won't be knocked or blown over. There are 3 chicken nipples on the bottom of the horizontal 2" pipe. A garden hose is connected with a shut off & quick connect to the fill valve for easy shutting off if necessary to relocate. Obviously we can't use this in freezing temps, but that hasn't been an issue much lately.
We use a mobile coup/run setup.
I used 5 gallon buckets with nipples and a fill valve in the past but always had trouble with the UV light degrading the bucket and the lid would crack or the handle would tear off. Plus when we would move the coup and run we'd have to deal with rehanging the bucket. I could have built a hanger I guess but this new idea hit me a few weeks ago and with all this time at home I'm finally getting around to some improvements I've been meaning to do. This setup is completely freestanding.
I use this setup for our layer coup. I'm going to build a similar setup for my 3 meat chicken tractors that will attach directly to the tractor so when we move the tractor we don't have to do anything but relocate a hose. For the tractors I'll probably not connect directly to pressurized water but instead use a 55 gallon drum to hold the water and gravity feed to the tractor. The drum will be on a cart so we can use the ATV to move it around when necessary and also to fill the drum when empty.
Figured I'd offer something up since I've been taking a lot of info from others over the years.
I used 5 gallon buckets with nipples and a fill valve in the past but always had trouble with the UV light degrading the bucket and the lid would crack or the handle would tear off. Plus when we would move the coup and run we'd have to deal with rehanging the bucket. I could have built a hanger I guess but this new idea hit me a few weeks ago and with all this time at home I'm finally getting around to some improvements I've been meaning to do. This setup is completely freestanding.
I use this setup for our layer coup. I'm going to build a similar setup for my 3 meat chicken tractors that will attach directly to the tractor so when we move the tractor we don't have to do anything but relocate a hose. For the tractors I'll probably not connect directly to pressurized water but instead use a 55 gallon drum to hold the water and gravity feed to the tractor. The drum will be on a cart so we can use the ATV to move it around when necessary and also to fill the drum when empty.
Figured I'd offer something up since I've been taking a lot of info from others over the years.
