My nipple waterer experience

[dianaross77]

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I haven't used this yet but it was my plan to look into it. http://www.bigappleherp.com/Big-Apple-Flexible-Heat-Ropes

 

[Wheeler Farms Chickens]

I just put in a 5 gal bucket with the nipples in the bottom. The chicks loved it. My concern in the weight of the bucket when full or partially full of water. Will the handle hold if its suspended?

 

[BellevueOmlet]

I like the waterer cups because they do not leak or drip water like nipples can

 

[Amethyste]

We use the chicken nipples...not an issue at all with leaking of any sort. There is always a tiny little drop that hangs at the bottom, but it hardly ever falls. I do not see any wet bedding or concrete at all...we have a large patio block we placed under the nipples so that we could see if there was any wetness...I am paranoid about it, and only see a drop every few days, and I do mean a drop. We do see some splashes from when the girls get a bit over zealous with the nipples, but that's kind of obvious to see.

The girls do great with it. I seem to recall my husband used silicone caulking or something non water soluble to seal around the edges when he installed it, and it works great! Even in winter, we put a bucket heater in thru the hole we made on top, and it keeps the nipples from freezing, even when it has been close to 0 F at night.

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We don't have our 5 gallon suspended by the handle...I don't trust it. We have a little table that it sits on partially, and have a hook and chain that pull the handle back as an added protection against it falling over.

 

[gootziecat]

The water nipples are wonderfully clean and you don't run out of water. However, my experience has been mixed. My water nipples are put on plastic buckets, such as you buy at Lowes. No problems with leakage. My problem has been them not properly dispersing the water (gett jammed) and the birds go without until I discover it and fiddle with it to get it flowing again. The birds don't seem to drink as much from the nipples in general and they much prefer an open dish or tub of some sort. Also, I lost one pullet due to the bucket being lifted and knocked out of an "S" hook. This may have been partiallly my fault since I hung it a bit lower than it should have been as there were different sized birds together and I was concerned the younger ones couldn't reach the nipples.

 

[carress]

I just started using the nipples, and Im loving them.
I'm wondeing what will happen in the winter though. Someone suggested switching out the buckets (frozen for in-house, thawed) daily, but I'm wondering if the freezing itself won't sestroy the nipples. Mune are red plastic screw in, and i bought them on ebay.

I was thinking of using a aquarium water heater to keep the water from freezing, but not sure how to go about that as my electric runs to the coop (extension cord), and it would be crazy to just have a line outside in the winter...

 

[Amethyste]

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We used a waterproof plastic bucket safe heater...it just hangs in the bucket. My husband cut a hole out of the lid, and put on of the PVC plastic things on it with a screw in part? I will try to find what its called cos I can't remember

But anyway that screw cap thin is like a gas cap...and we unscrew it to add more water in.

But anyway, we thread the heater cord thru the opening, and cover it with tin foil (so it wont get dust inside the water), The cord for the heater is insulated, so not exposed or anything like that so its fine to cover it. Its the kind that only turns on if the water temp drops to 35 F, and will click off if it gets above that.We don't have power out to the coop, but our neighbor (an electrician) helped us with the power cord from the outside outlet to the girls. We ended up getting a special made for cold weather/snow/ice type of cord at Lowe's.

We had no issues with the water freezing, and with the birds not getting water. No leaks, no thirsty birds...and no frozen water.

In this area we commonly have weeks of below freezing temps at night, and many days as well. Gotta love being in the Puget Sound Convergence Zone lol We get all the fun weather... snow, hail, rain, lots of ice...