I have been noticing some red stuff in the chickens water fount for a few weeks now. We use a plastic 5 gallon water fount that hangs. Our water comes from well water that is filtered and runs through a softener. At first I thought that the red stuff was some sort of algae, but the red stuff kind of collects at the bottom of the water reservoir like a cloud. I now think that the red stuff could be iron separating from the water. Is this a problem for the chickens? I want to put a few drops of bleach in the water. Can chickens handle the weak bleach? Charlie
https://www.backyardchickens.com/t/441322/hydrogen-peroxide-in-water/10 see post #17 and notice he does it every few weeks, not on a continuous basis he is a commercial operator I bleach out my waterers every 2 weeks and triple rinse them, then add plain water.
I'd skip the bleach. Especially if you don't know that it's algae. Besides, bleach is going to do more harm than any algae would anyway IMHO, so why go there?
Oh I forgot to mention that rust iron isn't digestible by people. I'd assume it was the same for chickens???
