My repeated attempts at coop water and leaking-please help!

[tweetzone86]

Hello all!

So I've had a couple different watering methods.

Method 1- quart size chick waterer from TSC. Worked great- til the birds got too big and kept knocking it over, thus spilling it everywhere, which led to...

Method 2- couldn't afford the buko expensive one at the time, so put a gasket seal lid on a 5 gallon bucket, drilled small holes around about 3" above the bottom of the bucket, and drilled a 1" hole in the bottom for filling. It worked great, no leaks! But it was SOOO heavy to flip all the time, and was a pain to carry (as the handle was on the "bottom" when I carried it) and I had to use gorilla tape every single time I refilled it to block the holes til I could flip it and untape it (Gorilla tape is expensive, y'all, but it was the only one that worked for the 20 feet I had to take the bucket (I refused to fill it inside after flooding the coop when my daughter didn't turn the water off for 5 seconds after I yelled stop). Water in hog feeder pan (which it sat in) was always dirty too. Which led to...

Method 3- Harris farms poultry watering cups. I bought 6 of them (12 birds wanted all to be able to drink freely) and screwed them with plumbers tape into 3/8" drilled holes in the bottom of yet another 5 gallon bucket. After filling, the darn things were leaking (most of them, not all of them) but at this point I was determined. So I got my hot glue gun and tried to seal them off. Worked for the majority of them, but again not all. It's not gushing like before, but it's still dripping enough that I had a soaked towel and about a square yard of soaked bedding (thank goodness I put vinyl remnant in there but still bedding doesn't grow on trees financially I can't replace it every freaking day as I have to buy it) the next morning- and an empty waterer.

So now said waterer is in the run, but that STILL doesn't solve my problem of water IN the coop (currently out of desperation I'm putting 2 gallons via bucket into a second hog feeder dish, but it's dirty and they keep getting bedding in it). But with wildfire smoke, I HAD to keep them inside (we tipped into hazardous yesterday, though the fires are geographically nowhere near us (I live in north Idaho; fires are in British Columbia)) to keep them safe from respiratory distress due to the smoke. Plus, a cat found a weak spot in our run (which is in progress the roof is temporarily a tarp stapled to sides but cat found a way in) and scared the crap out of my birds. If hubby hadn't seen the ruckus and chased cat away I may have several less chickens now...

So does anyone have any tips for me to keep the cups from leaking so I can finally get water IN the stupid coop that is clean and fresh and doesn't flood the darn thing???

Oh, and side note- chooks are 15 weeks old today.

 

[Ridgerunner]

I cannot help you with nipples or cups, hopefully someone will soon.

I use this method. Cut a hole in plywood to hold the pet dish and raise it high enough that they cannot kick in trash. The plywood can be a platform big enough they can walk on it. This one is in a wire bottomed grow-out coop but they can go a lot taller in a coop with bedding. At 15 weeks they'd have no problems hopping up pretty high.

They will poop in it so you will need to dump it daily but it does not leak.

 

[blackdog043]

Horizontal nipples(amazon) are the only thing I recommend, if you want clean water 24/7. Use a 250 watt stock tank deicer in the winter, to keep your waterer and nipples from freezing. If you buy these, drill an 11/32 hole and screw them in leaving 2 - 3 threads showing, do not screw them all the way in and there is no need to put anything on the threads. Horizontal nipples are the only thing I use.

When I go away (for a week) no one looks after my chickens and I don't worry, that's how good they work. I have 2 waterers (total 19 gallons of water) and 2 DIY no waste feeders holding 50 lb of feed.