Red "stuff" in the water

[PaPa Charlie]

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

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

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.

 

[triplepurpose]

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?

 

[ChickensAreSweet]

Oh I forgot to mention that rust iron isn't digestible by people. I'd assume it was the same for chickens???