NY chicken lover!!!!

[vmdanielsen]

Ack....back off on watering anything you don't eat. There is a way to find out, but it isn't easy. When you bought the house didn't the bank require "flow test" on your water source? And it depends on what kind of well you have. With a drilled well there isn't a supply of water sitting in a puddle waiting to be pumped up the well casing....there is an aquafir that your well has tapped into and the water has to "leak" into the area made by the well driller to be pumped up from the ground for your use. When that aquafir gets lower it takes more time for that infiltration to happen, so your pump can't bring water up for your use as soon as it used to. Now the aquafir is underground water that is replenished by above ground water falling from the sky. As you may have noticed there is distinct lack of replenishing water falling from the sky. And once it DOES fall from the sky it takes time to filter down to to the Aquafir to be pumped up for your use. Many people who "run their well dry" (meaning their well casing isn't long enough to reach the underground water source) find themselves spending a ton of money having their well drilled deeper and some of the less fortunate can not find water at any depth on their property in deep drought situations.

Here is the skinny on living with a well in a drought situation. If you can't eat it, don't water it. If you are gonna water the kids make it a treat not a daily thing and move where you do it each time so you water that area of lawn at the same time. And forget grass. You don't need it and it cost money to mow it when you get it to grow. Fill your small pool once a week and add 1/4 cup of household bleach to it daily to keep it sanitary.

IF you are unfortuante enough to find out your well is not recovering fast enough for your needs you are gonna be very very very unhappy. It will mean trips to the laudramat for clean clothes, trips to freinds or relatives for clean bodies and carrying in all the water you need for cooking and drinking. Oh, and paper plates so you don't have to wash dishes. And your toilets won't flush.
And bottles of water carried to the sink to brush teeth. And clean hands? Nope, you'll have to use hand sanitizer and hope it kills everything you have been exposed to recently. And bringing in every ounce of water the birds need. It's not pretty. Best to limit your water useage and never have the problem then adjust your entire life to living with inadequate running water from your taps..

In addition, in drought conditions, I remove my washer from the septic system. Grey water goes into a bucket and I water my flowers with it. If it gets desperate, I will also water veggies.

 

[ChickPrincess]

I've never had to give our water much thought, but we also don't water our grass either.
Lately, I'll spend lots of time hosing down the chicken poo in the run and running the sprinkler for the chickens and/or the ducks. Guess I won't be doing that for awhile. We also have a system in the basement for water. It goes through sand, charcoal, chlorination and then through the water softener. Sometimes our water gets a sulphur smell, and then other times our water turns a nasty grayish color. We are figuring it's some kind of bacteria, but not sure what. We've been working on it for awhile. When that happens we switch to bottled water. Sometimes well water sucks.

 

[ChickPrincess]

I have a dumb question about our ducks. We have one male mallard and two Rouen (sex unknown) young ducks. We are debating on keeping them or not. They have had their own area, fenced in, with a small unfiltered pond. It gets nasty quickly and the water has to be completely changed every 1.5 to 2 weeks. PITA.
Can we put the ducks in with the chickens? Including the coop? Would they need their own caged area in the coop?
I'd be willing to keep them if I could. As it sits right now, the 3 ducks are just as much, if not more, work than all the chickens combined.
My plans are to change the coop floor to sand.
What do other people do???

 

[Lynzi777]

Lynzi,
The valley where you live is a very watery place. The valley floor actually changes elevation seasonally due to the use of water by the trees etc. I would bet that you will have less concern over water than many folks. There are mud boils in some of the fields. It is an area geology students world wide study.
That said, perhaps short showers, let the grass go dormant, and give shrubs about a gallon a day, not water from the hose for hours on end. Enough water to prevent the plants you spent money on from dying, be smart about it , but don't freak. And the water system is a very good thing, could be for either of the reasons stated.

Thanks for the reassurance. I don't go crazy using water all day long, so I may be stressing more than I need to. It's just that we've never dealt with well water before so we are new to it probably never thought twice about how much we should be using. But the area is definitely watery like you mentions. The water is always trickling down from the mountain, like I've mentioned in other posts, my chickens have a "hideout" off in the woods that they like to lay in and it's right next to the small creek that runs down the woods along side our yard. I water my plants once in the morning and sometimes in the evening - but it takes me 10 minutes, at most 15. It's not like I turn on the sprinkler and let it run over them for hours at a time. I'm probably thinking into it a lot more than I need to. But now that I've heard different stories, I will definitely make sure we are more cautious with our usage. So Thanks everyone!

Seems to be alot cooler out today than this weekend. I'm still waiting patiently for our first egg, or even a crow at this point. I'm wondering at what age my lavender roo is going to belt one out. Will roosters actually crow from inside the coop or when they leave it?

 

[Lynzi777]

In addition, in drought conditions, I remove my washer from the septic system. Grey water goes into a bucket and I water my flowers with it. If it gets desperate, I will also water veggies.

Thats a good idea, I would have never thought of that. It's ok to water flowers even though there is soap in it? Or is the detergent so diluted at that point that it doesn't really effect them?

 

[Glasshen]

Another thought, you could ask your landlord if you should be concerned about conserving water, but I would also ask around the neighbors. If someone in the past had the well go dry, someone is sure to remember. Hope you will have no problems.

 

[rancher hicks]

This may sound like a stupid question, but we are new to the whole water system with a well - how can you tell the water supply is getting low or see that the well is almost empty? I feel like we go thru so much water between all that we use inside the house, but I've also been using it outside ALOT to water all my plants twice a day, sometime to run the sprinkler because our grass was drying with the lack of rain, my kids use the sprinkler as well, and we also have a pool they like to use once in a while so we'll fill that up. We haven't has any problems yet though with any water coming thru faucets that looked dirty or smelled.

One thing for sure is let the grass go. It only appears to be dying, it will come back when the rain comes. Also ditch the sprinkling the kids and have them use the pool more often instead. We put a tarp over the pool when not in use to keep crud out.

Certainly there is some type of meter to use in the well right.

If the plants are veg garden plants, use my can method to conserve water. Non essentials I'd water just enough to keep them alive. You could of course us a temp can method. Just take up the cans when the rain comes. Put the cans as close to your plants as you can without damaging roots.

You can certainly use a water conservation method to save rain water for the garden too. You might find some of those plastic drums on CL for cheap. Here we can get them for $10. If your house and coop have gutters place one in each area. I didn't think rain water would be good for chickens but I stand corrected. You can cool it down by freezing water in large containers so you have a big "chunk" of ice to put in the waterers.

Water in the evenings and of course mulch where you can. Evenings will keep things from drying out right away. Newspapers under straw or hay makes a good mulch. I use cardboard boxes. After a good soak they hold moisture fairly well. I also use coop cleaning to mulch too around trees or plants.

I've been carrying the chicken water tubs/pans over to my ornamental grasses and dumping it on them when I clean them each day. I also empty waterers onto plants when cleaning and refilling those too.

Hope some of my ideas help.

Rancher

Just fill each can and not spray around the plants. It saves time and water. This will work in gardens that are not raised beds too.

 

[Lynzi777]

I'll ask my one neighbor. There isn't another for another mile or more down the road. LOL Another thing that got me thinking was the "water system" they have set up for the horse in their pasture. There's this long pipe that looks like it runs from the mountain, across/under the road and thru to this spot they have this large barrel that is constantly filling up with water. It just runs and runs. And whatever falls out of the barrel goes into this little stream, again that is backed by this larger pipe that runs under the ground (and under the road). Could it be that the water from that pipe is just constantly getting recycled from the stream/mountain? I'll have to go talk to her this evening when she gets home from work.

 

[kamir]

Quote:

Resistance is futile

 

[kamir]

SNIP...
However I am partial to Delawares and think Silkies are aliens from another planet. I swear I saw some on the farm in the beginning of MIB.

I'm with rancher on this, lol.

SNIP...

You can certainly use a water conservation method to save rain water for the garden too. You might find some of those plastic drums on CL for cheap. Here we can get them for $10. If your house and coop have gutters place one in each area. I didn't think rain water would be good for chickens but I stand corrected. You can cool it down by freezing water in large containers so you have a big "chunk" of ice to put in the waterers.

Just be careful with roof runoff water. If the roof is shingled, chemicals can leach from them, and, some of the newer shingles have an additive to kill moss..not good for drinking.
Also, even with filtration, it is recommended to discard the first 50 gallons or so of runoff else one gets the accumulated dust, dirt, and debris which settles on roofs.

kamir