Rainwater good or not ?

[Leggo321]

My chickens have been drinking snow-melt. They seem to really like those puddles!

 

[lolitahbi]

I also wanted to know if the water in my rain barrel would be safe. It fills frm a run-off hose on my garage gutter down-spout. I use it to water my garden and the spout is up high enough n the barrel that no sediment is released. but the water does run off the roofing shingles.

 

[RorySeiter]

I can't imagine chickens needing bottled water!

 

[Sharon Bee]

I wish I could do this, but collecting rainwater in CO is illegal (yes I can hardly believe it either, as I'm originally from the UK) - there are other states that have the same law apparently.

What?? Why on earth would that be illegal? We collect rainwater all the time for watering the gardens. Cheaper and better for the plants. There are even rainbarrel programs here.

 

[ljseabreeze]

I have been collecting rain water from the roof of my coop for 6 years and it works great. I have screened gutters and a double screened 50 gal drum and a gravity fed poultry basin. Our yard is on a hill so we needed to prevent all the run off from washing out the hill. We don't get much rain but when we do it works perfectly. No complaints from the hens.

 

[Mehjr10]

I use rain water for mine. I have not had to add water to the barrel since I first set it up on the stand. Using Nipples for delivery to the flock.

 

[Lee Nelson]

Since rain is God's way of giving the earth a shower, I don't believe that rainwater is completely pure. When I was in elementary school in California, we very often had "smog alerts" which meant that we could not go outside and play during recess because the air was not good to breathe. You could actually see the orange haze near the horizon. I would be extremely wary of drinking that rainwater!

 

[ChickInDelight]

I wish I could do this, but collecting rainwater in CO is illegal (yes I can hardly believe it either, as I'm originally from the UK) - there are other states that have the same law apparently.

Say what? I have heard of HOAs that won't allow rain barrels, but folks need to work to change any anti-green laws.

I was amazed at how much water I collected in my barrels (actually plastic totes). I am hankering for proper barrels and hoses now!

 

[pdirt]

This is a really great idea. I have concerns about using the water for edible gardening or for feeding to chickens from an asphalt-shingled roof. I did some research awhile ago, but here is a new one (new to me).

Here's a pretty interesting thread about the safety of various roofing materials used for collecting rain water:

http://www.city-data.com/forum/self...e-rain-water-catchment-vegetable-gardens.html

The post from "MissingAll4Seasons" is particularly good, about halfway down the first page of the thread.

The link to the Texas Rainwater Harvest Manual is broken, a working one is: http://www.ecy.wa.gov/programs/wr/hq/pdf/texas_rw_harvestmanual_3rdedition.pdf

From Page 6:
"Due to leaching of toxins, composite
shingles are not appropriate for potable
systems, but can be used to collect water
for irrigation. Composite roofs have an
approximated 10-percent loss due to
inefficient flow or evaporation
(Radlet and Radlet, 2004)."