Need a better way to water my flock

[docdubz]

My chickens are drinking upwards of 5 gallons a day and by the time I get around to refilling them their waters wind up going dry more often than I would like. I tried a diy vacuum waterer (basically 5gal buckets sitting in pans) and that worked great until my chickens figured out how to knock over 5gal buckets full of water (I have no idea how they could possibly do it, but here we are).

So, I need a solution that will allow me to have at least a 20 gallon or so water capacity. Are those nipple waterers actually worth it? They seem like the sort of gimmicky thing that sounds good but never works for me.

 

[Annalyse]

I have 2 waterers in my run. I have a flock of 7. I use on the ground a 5-gallon waterer. Yes, it does end up dirty by the end of the day but they don't care, they'll drink anything. I also have a hanging waterer small, it has 2 nipples and they love it. In the winter they freeze and mine leaked once from freezing the wrong way. I just got a new waterer that can sit or hang and I added horizontal nipples this time and my chickens knew right away what to do. My suggestion is for you to maybe hang some waterers if you can. How many is your flock?

 

[kerbotx]

Make your own pvc pipe fountain with poultry nipples - I based mine off of this article:

https://the-chicken-chick.com/the-advantages-of-poultry-nipples/

I made mine to fit the outdoor space where it was installed, which was about 8' long, with 2 vertical pipes on the ends that are about 3' tall, prob has about 10 vertical nipples installed. I have no idea how many gallons it holds Plus, I make vertical pipes to hang around their free-range area, that hold about 1 gallon each.

 

[KauflandZ]

Thanks for the advice guys!

 

[blackdog043]

I use 14 gallon drums that I bought from Amazon. I have 8 horizontal nipples around each one. The top comes off for easy refilling.

 

[alwaystj9]

I use 14 gallon drums that I bought from Amazon. I have 8 horizontal nipples around each one. The top comes off for easy refilling.

Do you have any mosquito issues with those drums? I don't know how tightly the lid fits.

 

[blackdog043]

@alwaystj9 No I have not, the water stays very clean inside. I rinse the drums out 2 or 3 times a year, because I think I should, not because it's dirty or slimy. Inside the lid is a foam seal, which I took out so it wasn't air tight, which may hinder the nipples working correctly. I've used the drums for a couple years now, before that I used 5 gallon buckets with HZ nipples.

 

[alwaystj9]

@alwaystj9 No I have not, the water stays very clean inside. I rinse the drums out 2 or 3 times a year, because I think I should, not because it's dirty or slimy. Inside the lid is a foam seal, which I took out so it wasn't air tight, which may hinder the nipples working correctly. I've used the drums for a couple years now, before that I used 5 gallon buckets with HZ nipples.

Thank you, I have to dump every open water source every 3 days. I just got rid of my rain barrel it kept a flock of mosquitos. Have you ever checked water temps in it during late summer?

 

[NatJ]

My chickens are drinking upwards of 5 gallons a day and by the time I get around to refilling them their waters wind up going dry more often than I would like. I tried a diy vacuum waterer (basically 5gal buckets sitting in pans) and that worked great until my chickens figured out how to knock over 5gal buckets full of water (I have no idea how they could possibly do it, but here we are).

So, I need a solution that will allow me to have at least a 20 gallon or so water capacity. Are those nipple waterers actually worth it? They seem like the sort of gimmicky thing that sounds good but never works for me.

You may have already tried this, but just using multiple waterers can work, instead of trying to do a single big one.

There are some one-gallon plastic waterers that can be hung, so they don't get knocked over (white top, red trough at the bottom is the most common color.)

Or there are the metal kind with a dome on the top that you lift off to add water, which flows out into a trough at the bottom. I know they come in 5 gallon sizes, and I think maybe larger yet too, and are pretty tip-resistant.

My own pattern is to refill every chicken waterer, every single morning, every day of the year. If the weather is below freezing I check or refill a few more times during the day. Doing it every day is easier for me than remembering which days to do it.

(I'm not saying that you need to do it my way--just sharing it in case any of the details are helpful to you.)

 

[Red-Stars-in-RI]

My chickens are drinking upwards of 5 gallons a day and by the time I get around to refilling them their waters wind up going dry more often than I would like. I tried a diy vacuum waterer (basically 5gal buckets sitting in pans) and that worked great until my chickens figured out how to knock over 5gal buckets full of water (I have no idea how they could possibly do it, but here we are).

So, I need a solution that will allow me to have at least a 20 gallon or so water capacity. Are those nipple waterers actually worth it? They seem like the sort of gimmicky thing that sounds good but never works for me.

How many chickens do you have?

I use 5-gallon bucket nipple waterers. I sit them up on cinderblocks and put cone-shaped tops on them to keep them from attempting to roost on them.