Nipple wateres vs. cups; My experience.

[Neil Grassbaugh]

Quote:
This is most likely a Lubing nipple drinker system. Probably the best one on the market. And the most expensive. Made in Germany.

 

[Neil Grassbaugh]

Quote:
With more experience and understanding of the situation I am sure you would recognize why.

So in other words you have no real reason to make that statement (besides that you obviously sell nipples or are some how invested in them).

Yes I do sell nipple drinkers. There are nipple drinker systems components sitting on the dock right now that are to be shipped to the Carribean tomorrow. That shipment includes 10,700 nipple drinkers. In fact I have sold close to a million of them over the years plus there are about 28,000 of them on my farm. We have just over 309,000 chickens on the farm now. How many do you have to water F a r m e r John?
I have traveled several continents working with all sorts of poultry watering situations. The company I work for represents the four largest manufactureres of poultry watering systems in the world. Oh yeah- I also sell cup drinkers - thousands of them a year. In fact when the originator and largest manufacturer of cup drinkers there ever was sold out I was retained to appraise the assets of the company and prepare an analysis of the business prospects of the company. See I knew the inventor of the modern cup drinker. Worked for him a litte too - as a consultant. Nice place to work, near the vineyards in CA. All expenses paid.

Plus, I don't know if this means much but, I am also a fluid dynamics engineer. We do water and that kind of stuff.

 

[Neil Grassbaugh]

Quote:
Industrial setups do not include the use of buckets. For birds raised on the floor the nipples are installed in pipes, often as much as 300' long, and suspended from the ceiling. Small setups are not in the scope of the manufacturers. In fact some of the manufacturers discontinued promoting small scale sales at the behest of the large poultry companies.
I suggest that there might be a particle of something in the nipple blocking open the contact of the ball and seat which stops the flow of water. Often just letting a bunch of water out of the nipple using your finger to hold it open will do the trick.

 

[RedDrgn]

Quote:
We switched our birds over to nipples (in a 2-gallon bucket) about two months ago. They're doing find with them, but we were only ever filling the bucket about 1/3 to 1/2 because they didn't drink that much and we weren't pitching a gallon of water when we changed the water each day.

Now that they're drinking more, we started filling the bucket more...and it's leaking! If we fill the bucket more than halfway, every single nipple leaks. We twisted, cleaned, poked, prodded, all of it to no avail. It's not the seal where they are screwed in, either, but the darned nipple itself. Sooo mad (a 2-gallon bucket we can only use 1-gallon of - what a waste).

So we're planning on getting new nipples. Where do you suggest finding the ones of decent quality that you mentioned? We keep water in the coop and plan to continue to do so (in case weather ever makes it a necessity they stay in) and just cannot afford to have it leaking like a sieve (especially with winter approaching). Thanks!

What is the water column height? If the pressure is to great any other problem is multiplied.
The nipples straight up and down.
Is the height of the nipples correct for the size of the birds?
Could there be particles in the water that are lodging the nipples open?
I will send you a link where top end nipples are offered for sale.

The water column height cannot exceed approximately 4 inches or all four nipples leak.
The nipples are vertical and the height is regularly adjusted as the birds grow to keep it at a proper elevation for them.
There could have been particles; our bucket lid was not fitting very well due to our hanging mechanism. We thought that was probably our issue, at first. So we corrected it so that the top is sealed and nothing can get in. We cleaned the bucket thoroughly with soap and warm water and flushed the nipples - whatever type we have, they cannot be taken apparently to access the bearing, so we did the best we could just to wash them out. They continue to leak if the water is too high.
Thanks much!

 

[FarmerJ0hn]

Quote:
So in other words you have no real reason to make that statement (besides that you obviously sell nipples or are some how invested in them).

Yes I do sell nipple drinkers. There are nipple drinker systems components sitting on the dock right now that are to be shipped to the Carribean tomorrow. That shipment includes 10,700 nipple drinkers. In fact I have sold close to a million of them over the years plus there are about 28,000 of them on my farm. We have just over 309,000 chickens on the farm now. How many do you have to water F a r m e r John?
I have traveled several continents working with all sorts of poultry watering situations. The company I work for represents the four largest manufactureres of poultry watering systems in the world. Oh yeah- I also sell cup drinkers - thousands of them a year. In fact when the originator and largest manufacturer of cup drinkers there ever was sold out I was retained to appraise the assets of the company and prepare an analysis of the business prospects of the company. See I knew the inventor of the modern cup drinker. Worked for him a litte too - as a consultant. Nice place to work, near the vineyards in CA. All expenses paid.

Plus, I don't know if this means much but, I am also a fluid dynamics engineer. We do water and that kind of stuff.

Defensive much? All that's great, but doesn't really matter nor do I care. Don't imply that there's something wrong with the cup drinkers when there isn't. No one here is looking to water thousands of birds, this is backyardchickens.com

As you mentioned it' might be a "novelty" for them to be able to drink from a pool of water, but again, the people here like their chickens and want them to be happy.

 

[RedDrgn]

Quote:
Yes I do sell nipple drinkers. There are nipple drinker systems components sitting on the dock right now that are to be shipped to the Carribean tomorrow. That shipment includes 10,700 nipple drinkers. In fact I have sold close to a million of them over the years plus there are about 28,000 of them on my farm. We have just over 309,000 chickens on the farm now. How many do you have to water F a r m e r John?
I have traveled several continents working with all sorts of poultry watering situations. The company I work for represents the four largest manufactureres of poultry watering systems in the world. Oh yeah- I also sell cup drinkers - thousands of them a year. In fact when the originator and largest manufacturer of cup drinkers there ever was sold out I was retained to appraise the assets of the company and prepare an analysis of the business prospects of the company. See I knew the inventor of the modern cup drinker. Worked for him a litte too - as a consultant. Nice place to work, near the vineyards in CA. All expenses paid.

Plus, I don't know if this means much but, I am also a fluid dynamics engineer. We do water and that kind of stuff.

Defensive much? All that's great, but doesn't really matter nor do I care. Don't imply that there's something wrong with the cup drinkers when there isn't. No one here is looking to water thousands of birds, this is backyardchickens.com

As you mentioned it' might be a "novelty" for them to be able to drink from a pool of water, but again, the people here like their chickens and want them to be happy.

No need for anyone to get upset/defensive/aggressive/etc. We're all here for the same reason - chickens!

Some people on here do have thousands of chickens, and even more have hundreds and tens....then there are those of us with even less. We all have different goals with our birds (pets, eggs, meat, breeding, show, etc.), but I think everyone would agree that they want their chickens healthy/happy and that there are numerous ways to achieve that end. We all do what we think is best for our birds, whatever our flock size and methods, and we all will always have something to learn from each other so long as there are chickens to be tended.

 

[FarmerJ0hn]

Quote:
Yes, but the majority are smaller flocks not commercial operations in the thousands. I take issue with a person who is known for selling nipples trying to steer people away from cups by saying "their use is restricted to third world countries" when there is nothing wrong with them for the folks of this site (besides maybe price). It glows of ulterior motives.

I get it, I just bad mouthed nipples which he is vested in, he doesn't appreciate that since he feels his product is superior. At the end of the day a quick search will tell you, however, a whole lot of people on this site and elsewhere have run into problems with the nipples, the same search will tell you barely anyone has had problems with the cups. I only found one thread which was posted very recently and his problem was likely cracking the fitting from threading too deep.

Coming into a thread and defending nipples because you believe your product does not suffer the same issues is fine, badmouthing the alternative that functions better (based on experience and lack of complaints from others), not so fine.

 

[kevs-chickadees]

Quote:
Your problems with nipples are most likely from misoperation ot misinterpretation of the situation.
First of all - are the birds producing well (eggs or growth)? If they are doing well there is no water problem.
If they are not producing well then first examine how high the nipples are. If they are either to high (unlikely) or to low the birds will not get enough water and production will suffer.
Chickens probably do prefer to drink out of a pool of water rather than a nipple. But that in no way means that they cannot get enough water. And when presented with the novelty of a pool of water when used to drinking from a nipple the birds will flock to it and may appear to be satisfying something other than the difference.

They prefer to drink out of the dogs bowl, kinda neat to see my Rottie sharing and drinking right beside the hens, but anyway. I can probably eliminate the dogs bowl in a couple of weeks when it cools down and try and show them again. I would like them to use it, I made it a sweet setup where I could put frozen blocks of ice in the tube and everything.

 

[jmagill]

Quote:
Yes, but the majority are smaller flocks not commercial operations in the thousands. I take issue with a person who is known for selling nipples trying to steer people away from cups by saying "their use is restricted to third world countries" when there is nothing wrong with them for the folks of this site (besides maybe price). It glows of ulterior motives.

I get it, I just bad mouthed nipples which he is vested in, he doesn't appreciate that since he feels his product is superior. At the end of the day a quick search will tell you, however, a whole lot of people on this site and elsewhere have run into problems with the nipples, the same search will tell you barely anyone has had problems with the cups. I only found one thread which was posted very recently and his problem was likely cracking the fitting from threading too deep.

Coming into a thread and defending nipples because you believe your product does not suffer the same issues is fine, badmouthing the alternative that functions better (based on experience and lack of complaints from others), not so fine.

A lot of us use nipples and have no problems with them. I have used both cups and nipples. Cups don't work for me because they freeze in the winter too easily. Most people that have problems with the nipples do have the low cost ones or install them incorrectly.

Neil is not here in this thread because he is wanting to make money on his nipples. He sells high quality nipples and ships for a price that most others can not meet because he is not trying to make a big buck off of us here at BYC. Neil answers everyone's questions and is far more knowledgeable than most on watering chickens.

 

[speedy2020]

How do you deal with the cup during winter season to keep its from freeze up the water?