post your chicken coop pictures here!

[ShrekDawg]

With all the discussions going on about having clean drinking water for chickens this was our solution. We don't use tap water because of it's harsh mineralization and chlorination so we use bottled water for the chickens. A jug stays clean for up to 2 weeks before we need to wash it out and refill it. I got tired of losing up to a gallon of bottled water daily in open dirty water bowls and now we don't have to deal with dirty poops and debris from chickens or wild birds! The wild birds don't have a clue how to get under the Brite Tap for water. According to the chickenwaterer.com website they say a Brite Tap jug accommodates up to 12 chickens per jug but for our 4 chickens I use 2 jugs placed around the yard in the shade and keep a 3rd jug indoors for the hospital pen. We aren't handy workshop people to make our own nipple valve buckets so these pre-made Brite Tap nipple valve waterers were the solution for our small cottage yard. CHICKENS FLEE WHEN THEY SEE MY CAMERA SO HAD TO TAKE THESE PHOTOS THRU THE DOOR. THE SILKIE IS STANDING ON 2 PAVER STONES HIGH WHILE THE AMERAUCANA IS ON THE PAVEMENT. THESE TWO WERE MY SLOWEST CHICKENS TO LEARN HOW TO USE NIPPLE VALVES BUT THEY LEARNED! THIS WAS THE LAST CHICKEN TO FINALLY UNDERSTAND HOW THE VALVES WORKED - TOOK HER 8 DAYS - AMERAUCANAS CAN EITHER BE THE SMARTEST TO LEARN SOME THINGS OR THE SLOWEST - IT'S AMERAUCANA NATURE TO VIEW NEW THINGS VERY WARILY. THE 2-GALLON RUBBERMAID WATER JUG AND LID THAT COMES WITH THE BRITE TAP NIPPLE VALVE WATERER PKG THE BRITE TAP NIPPLE VALVE WATERER PKG INCLUDING THE BRITE TAP INSULATED COVER AT THE BOTTOM - COVER GOT DUSTY FROM ALL THE YARD CONSTRUCTION I realize this method may not work for everyone but for a small backyard flock this suited us plus we use bottled water and not tap. It's portable and we've moved it around a lot, it keeps the drinking water clean, I can handle it for clean-up in the sink (the chickens can't poop on the jug and only their beaks touch the valves so clean-up is so-o-o easy and fast), it's insulated and keeps the water cool outdoors with a few ice cubes tossed inside. We live in SoCal where temps never go below freezing so this works for us. To anticipate your question, this is the website I ordered from. Mark was very gracious to help me transition my old hens from the open water bowl to using the nipple valves. Following instructions and advice from Mark to a "T" I had the whole flock using the valves. Some hens pick up on it right away while others can be slower or lazier. http://www.chickenwaterer.com/Chicken-Poultry-Waterer-s/1817.htm

That seems like a fantastic idea! I had ordered some nipples on Amazon maybe a month ago but had no idea this thing existed. I've seen other similar ones but this seems way better. I'm not handy either so this would be great. Though it does seem a tad high to order two or three so maybe I could just get one? We have 8 though. How did you train them? Do you havr to take away the other waterer?

 

[gpeters3]

I tried a heated open dog dish first then put it in a home made cover that allowed only their head to get near the water. Chickens have on goal, to poop in and on everything in the coop. I swear they must have squated down and aimed their butts at that little opening because they still filled the dish with poop.

Then I went to a heated hanging drinker which stays cleaner because I hang it so they have to work at it to get a drink but its still a pain to clean and refil because its heavy and has a thin wire handle which bites into my trigger finger hands so I'm trying the nipple idea now (fortunately i have an 1/8th inch pipe tap) but I'm going to have to move it out from under the nests to get it high enough for them to stand under it and let the water drip into their mouths.

My original perches were steel pipe and they are inserted into drilled holes but he rough finish and rough holes don't allow much movement. I was going to pin them if i noticed them having trouble but now, after all the discussion, I believe I agree that wood is a better choice so I'll make some changes when I get caught up with fixing everyone's cars...

 

[Beekissed]

I use a heated dog bowl and there's never any dirt in it, nor poop. I just placed it up on a pedestal where they have to climb up to drink and have to reach up and over the rim of it to get a sip. No water on wattles, no dirt in the water, no mess. And I have deep litter that's pretty deep and being kicked up all the time all winter...still no dirt in the open waterer.

 

[MeepBeep]

I use a heated dog bowl and there's never any dirt in it, nor poop.  I just placed it up on a pedestal where they have to climb up to drink and have to reach up and over the rim of it to get a sip.  No water on wattles, no dirt in the water, no mess.  And I have deep litter that's pretty deep and being kicked up all the time all winter...still no dirt in the open waterer. 

I take it none of your birds are inclined to fly and land on edge of a bowl? I know if given an open bowl like that I would have multiple birds splashing away and cleaning their feet in the water about 30 seconds after it was filled...

 

[Beekissed]

I take it none of your birds are inclined to fly and land on edge of a bowl? I know if given an open bowl like that I would have multiple birds splashing away and cleaning their feet in the water about 30 seconds after it was filled...

No room for such shenanigans. My bowl is kept up on a high pedestal in a corner. They have to fly up even to get on the step to take a drink...and stretch up from there to get their heads over the lip of the bowl... and there's simply no room for them to fly from there to the edge of the bowl. Gotta outsmart them thar chickens....

 

[MeepBeep]

No room for such shenanigans.  My bowl is kept up on a high pedestal in a corner.  They have to fly up even to get on the step to take a drink...and stretch up from there to get their heads over the lip of the bowl... and there's simply no room for them to fly from there to the edge of the bowl.  Gotta outsmart them thar chickens.... 

I don't think it has to do with out smarting them as much as it has to do with particular birds abilities, I have bantams that fly up and roost on the conduit between the 2nd floor floor joist in my coop, they fly nearly straight up vertically to get there and my peafowl manage to somehow fly up and squeeze into the 10" or so above my isolation cage and the ceiling... Basically even if I put a bowl on a high pedestal even very close to the ceiling some of my birds would manage getting into it... I have a new bantam hen that is about 5 month old now, the girl is literally about robin sized, I can only imagine where she will be able to fit into...

 

[Beekissed]

I don't think it has to do with out smarting them as much as it has to do with particular birds abilities, I have bantams that fly up and roost on the conduit between the 2nd floor floor joist in my coop, they fly nearly straight up vertically to get there and my peafowl manage to somehow fly up and squeeze into the 10" or so above my isolation cage and the ceiling... Basically even if I put a bowl on a high pedestal even very close to the ceiling some of my birds would manage getting into it... I have a new bantam hen that is about 5 month old now, the girl is literally about robin sized, I can only imagine where she will be able to fit into...

Maybe they don't have enough room in the coop and must look for places up high so as to escape the other birds? My birds only do such things if there are young birds escaping from older birds and they are confined for some reason~very rare. And they still don't fly up on the waterer because they have other places they can roost up high instead of a bowl edge that would require them to stand with their faces in a corner if they perched there.

Roosting is plentiful in my coop, so no bird would roost on a bowl. I try to problem solve around their particular abilities and needs so they don't have to roost in weird places or splash around in a bowl of water for any reason. I can see ducks doing that, but my chickens don't really like getting wet, so they would naturally avoid trying to fly into a bowl of water. Any chicken insisting on roosting on a bowl of water here would most likely be culled from my flock so as to eliminate that problem.

Maybe a picture would help....

 

[MeepBeep]

Maybe they don't have enough room in the coop and must look for places up high so as to escape the other birds?

My coop is about 1800 square feet the birds (about 100 currently) are currently contained to about 900 sqft to make it easier to maintain, that is about 9 square feed per bird, plenty of space... There is also plenty of space for my birds to get away from each other and hide or roost that isn't the issue...

Roosting is plentiful in my coop, so no bird would roost on a bowl. 

I wasn't saying they would roost there, just that they would get into it as I know my birds would... I have plenty of roosting area as well, some just prefer to roost or hang out in solitary or other places and I know full well if there was an open bowl of water they would be in it...

Maybe a picture would help....

Yep, my birds would be all over that in no time short...

In the end open water like that would not work well for me I have a mixed flock from young birds to small bantams to flying breeds to larger peafowl I need a watering option that works for all sizes and doesn't get dirty while providing about them at least 10 gallons of water a day... I expect they will be up to 15 gallons a day when this seasons birds mature fully and next summers heat hits...

For me this works, a 55 gallon drum with horizontal nipples at multiple heights, as well as steps on the left and right approach so the smaller birds can reach the nipples as well while the bigger birds can approach from the front and reach... The drip tray catches and diverts and drips out of the coop and actually holds a little bit of water that some of the smaller birds seem to like using sicking their heads into... My coop is heated to just above freezing so little concern about freezing water in the coop, but I'm still going to drop a heater in there this winter to keep the water closer to 50° for a piece of mind, the last of the heater parts just arrived today so that will be finished shortly...

 

[Beekissed]

Glad I don't have your problems!

Glad you've got it all worked out.

You wouldn't even need a heated waterer at all with a heated coop, so a heated dog bowl would be a moot point. I can leave that bowl in the coop and never get a piece of dirt in it...I only change it out when I give the dogs fresh water every 3 days or so and it really doesn't even need it, but I figure the water is stale by then. My birds don't drink a lot of water in the winter and I only have 14 LF, so very minimal water use.

 

[MeepBeep]

You wouldn't even need a heated waterer at all with a heated coop, so a heated dog bowl would be a moot point.

I only heat to about 35° just enough to eliminate any frostbite risk, during extreme cold snaps or on windy days the temps in some areas of the coop can drop into freezing temps for a bit, thus I would rather have the water heated just in case, plus I suspect they birds will like the tempered water better...