post your chicken coop pictures here!

[Chicken Egg 17]

I have 4 vertical nipples with 21 chickens and there is only ever two or three drinking at a time also because the rest are still eating.

 

[ahyahy]

Still in progress. Chicks are 5 weeks old, so hopefully move-in day is this week!

Coop is 8x8, run is 10x16. Will be home to 10 hens.

The girls getting plenty of outside time until their home is ready.

 

[gpeters3]

I used a 1/4 npt tap for the horizontal ones and they worked well but is on the limit for a tight fit. Just for kicks i tried the 1/8 npt for the last one and it worked very well too. None of my nipples are leaking at the thread and i used teflon dope on all of them. Something i learned the hard way is plastic is not as greasy, luby as you might expect so you must use pipe dope to put them together. I only use teflon (oaty) now because it lasts and seals slight mis fits. I used to use the grey stuff but when mating plastic to iron it always leaked. (Deep well jet pump fittings) Switched to teflon and never had another issue.

For drinking water i always wipe excess lube off near the inner end of threads to prevent excess getting into the water. (Teflon is toxic)

School is nice but experience is the best teacher. School of hard knocks i work on cars now for myself and family so am familiar with sae and metric and i kept all my tools from the shop when i retired so threads are not new to me but not as familiar with metric as sae (still heve my 78 f250 to keep running). BTW, i looked and i think they can drink from the back side. The turkeys walk along drinking from one after another staying sideways and turning their heads so should be ok.

 

[gpeters3]

I have 4 vertical nipples with 21 chickens and there is only ever two or three  drinking at a time also because the rest are still eating.

Mine treat drinking and eating like laying eggs, when one starts, they all jump in. When they get thirsty you can hear the ruckus in the barn.

 

[MeepBeep]

I used a 1/4 npt tap for the horizontal ones and they worked well but is on the limit for a tight fit.

The hole is only slightly bigger but the pitch is off quite a bit on the 1/4" NPt, closer to M10-1.5 then M10-1.0, should work well on plastic to plastic with goop but IMO best to cut the closer pitched threads...

As for goop, never bothered with in on nipples as I never needed it, the HDPE that barrels are made of is quite slick and seals quite well... But, when I did home remodeling I never did like Teflon goops as most are 'chunky' and I hated the way they went on threads, the only goop I used and still use is Harveyseal 55...

 

[Intheswamp]

Still in progress. Chicks are 5 weeks old, so hopefully move-in day is this week!



Coop is 8x8, run is 10x16. Will be home to 10 hens.

That's looking good! Should be ample room for ten hens. Where are ya'll located (climate)? How much ventilation in the coop?

Ed

 

[YaYa27889]

Horizontal ones do not leak nearly as bad if at all, that isn't an assumption that is based on actually observing them both... I have had vertical nipples in unused brooders and the litter under them was damp, this is not from an occasional drip or what not this is due to leaking...

I have also observed them dripping at a steady pace like a leaky faucet, this happened when I did not physically take them apart and descale them about every week in a weak acid solution to remove scale build up... I suspect if you have softer water this might not be as big of an issue but for me it was huge and without fail would cause them to leak in short...

I have had the horizontals now for well over a year, zero maintenance and no leaks... A night and day difference and I would never go back to vertical ones...

I also use the horizontal nipples with an attached cup. We installed these on a five gallon bucket with a float valve. Hubby ran an underground pvc waterline to the three sided shelter he built for the watering bucket. The bucket sits up on cinder blocks . The pullets love this. It provides shade as well as water. No leaks, no mess, no fuss and zero maintenance

 

[KoopOnTruckin]

If attaching horizontal nipples to PVC, should we worry about using some sort of goop?

 

[Intheswamp]

From the instructions and from peoples' reports, no goop is required. Just drill a good, straight hole.

Ed

 

[YaYa27889]

If attaching horizontal nipples to PVC, should we worry about using some sort of goop?

We did not use any goop on ours. They have been installed for about a month with no issues. We bought the horizontal nipples with nipple cups because i was concerned about leakage but I think the cups were unnecessary