Red algea?

[CalebtheChicken]

Quote:
Ok, that's what I was thinking of.
Actually to be truthful, I don't need a waterer. There's a small spring in my lot and a small stream runs out of it that they drink out of.
The trouble is keeping the mud the chickens scoop in the stream out!

 

[Ema]

I didn't read all the replies to this comment but I used to date a marine biologist and in the south shores of ontario we started getting red algae in the lakes and the beaches were closed down. He told me that red algae in the water is hazardous and until it was cleaned up it was unsafe to go swimming or even let your dogs swimm or drink lake water. Red Occurring algea in regular tap water like when you find it in your waterer or pond is natural and a just chemical reaction like bacteria mixed in with high Iron content of the water. I got loads of iron in my water so we use water softeners and tannin filters where I am from. So In the lake no good. but naturally occurring just wash it out, that is what he said. If the chicks have been exposed to it for a long time well, it won't harm them now. Standing water often gets slime and scale build up. Unless you do a complete water analysis you really don't know what you got in it. Irons and tannins are common in ALL natural water. Just depends how well they are filtered out!!


EDITED FOR SPELLING>>>>I AM A BAD SPELLER :-(

 

[CalebtheChicken]

Quote:
Best explanation yet!!!!

 

[saladin]

If you will simply add 1oz of bleach to 1 gallon of drinking water then you will not have this problem. Bleach also helps to prevent the spread of disease.

Just don't use metal waterers when using bleach. saladin

 

[Ema]

Quote:
I was just wondering about this bleach to water ratio thing, so funny you wold mention it...lol....At lunch I drove down to get my husband a special treat (its his BDAY) and I asked him if our water gets a certain amount of chlorine/bleach to kill bacteria and keep it fresh couldn't we do the same for chickens. He wasn't sure. We are not on town water we have a well so in our brine tank we add the loads of salt to filter/soften the water as it goes through the softeners etc... so we have no chemicals in it at all. but my culligan water I get the analysis says it contains bleach and or chlorine.

 

[chickenwhisperer]

I get a kind of pinkish film on my waterers here too, I always figured it was from the flouride they put in the water these days . . .

It doesnt seem to harm anything, and I can find it pretty much wherever I let water sit for a few days, even inside in a dark room, which makes me think its not algea.
It also doesnt have any odor . . .

It could, however, be a bacterial bloom, but I dont know.

I wash it out, but it doesnt seem to do any harm, even my dogs drink it.

 

[saladin]

Ema,
Yes all public water has chlorine added.

Bleach that you buy is only 6%. So, 1oz per gallon will not hurt at all. As a matter of fact, any time I have any disease outbreak I up that to 2oz per gallon until the disease is stopped.

(By the way, I'm on our city's water board). saladin