New to chickens - wattering nipple question

[biteme2134]

My only hold up so far is the price. Cheapest I've found is 50 cents each! I'm too cheap for that haha I'll have to pull the trigger I guess

 

[biteme2134]

Oh I'm on Central GA and last winter I changed my frozen buckets constantly. Already bought a heater for this year. Might do th horizontal if they still freeze like you said

 

[tebmsu97]

We got our flock started today! We picked up 7 speckled Sussex pullets from a local show. They love the enclosure, but showed no interest in the watering nipples. Should we put some water in a pan tomorrow or hope they figure things out?

Thanks on advance

 

[HighStreetCoop]

Just flick the nipple until one takes notice. The others will all follow.

 

[iwiw60]

Just flick the nipple until one takes notice. The others will all follow.

Exactly! Grab a bucket or whatever and sit in the run and flick the stainless steel thingie.....over and over and over and over....eventually one will come over out of curiosity to see what you're doing...then it's like she says "hey girls! There's water here!" Good luck!

 

[pdirt]

They may also be in shock from going to the show and then coming to a new home. Quite a drama in the life of a chicken. If they don't pick up soon on the nipples like the other folks mentioned, you might try just a dish of water for a week or two first, then try the nipples again. That will give them some time to relax into their new digs.

I had some 10 month old birds (our first flock) and I set up my phone to record video when I introduced the watering nipples. IIRC, I think it took around 1.5 hours before the first bird figured it out and the others slowly followed. Baby chicks figure it out in minutes. I did also flick the metal thing-y which seemed to catch their interest, even though they didn't immediately learn to use the nipples.

 

[tebmsu97]

Thanks for the responses. We did tap the dripper but I think pdirt is right, It was a pretty dramatic day for them. May need to give them some settle in time and try again.