Show me your watering system for a mixed flock

[TwistedPines]

Any and all of you who have chickens and ducks together, would you show me your watering set up?
With my current setup, my chickens didn't get the water too terribly dirty but the with the ducks, it's a whole other story.
They think the chicken waterer is great fun and the chickens have taken to drinking from the duck pond.

I've tried getting the girls (and boys) to switch to the poultry nipples with zero success. No one seems to really get it.

I'm sure I'm making this WAY harder than it needs to be, but I have to figure something out. Where we are, there is no water line connected so I've got other ways to make sure there is always clean water available.

Here's my current system:


The tank is a 175 gallon rotomold tank. I fill it from the well, then via gravity, it pulls down the line to bucket which houses an tank auto fill. The pipe on the ground a drain pipe I installed so help flush some of the dirt and grime. Needless to say, that's a darn near impossibility with the ducks. There is a slot cut in the bucket for all the girls to drink out of.


Perhaps someone can give me an idea on redoing it?

Thanks,

 

[ECBW]

I initially thought your mixed flock as mixed breeds. But instead you have mixed species. It reminds me of the postings of chickens with parrakeets, goats, etc.

Anyway, my chickens will find mud puddles during free range and drink from them, inspite of the clean water in the waterers. Since they seem to be fine, I don't worry myself over it. I do deworm them regularly.

I am interested to follow your posting for edification.

 

[CornerViewFarm]

Just made some of these ones up for a few people that have a mixed flock as in bantam/standard chickens. Just have to add the nipples and water line.

 

[pdirt]

Your chickens probably won't turn onto the watering nipples because they have the duck pond to drink from. I've noticed our chickens prefer to drink water from a surface (water on the ground or in a container with open surface area) rather than any kind of nipples. It's probably more "natural" for them and perhaps easier to do so, but if given no other choice, they do learn quickly and is WAY easier in terms of keeping their water clean.

It looks like you have a pretty good set up already, I like it. You didn't mention how many birds you have...I'm curious how long it takes for that 175 gallon tank to need refilling? I'd love to do something like that but even with 45 chickens, I'm concerned about it being too long between refills and having too much algae grow in the tank.

 

[TwistedPines]

That tank takes about an hour to fill up. I've had it sitting there for almost 4 months and no algae has started growing yet. Because it's gravity fed and the autofiller in the bucket keeps the water moving, I think that helps.

I currently have 38 chickens and 4 ducks. My goal with this setup was that I could leave for a day or two and wouldn't have to worry about the water. for them. However, the ducks make the water in the bucket pretty gross.

 

[BellevueOmlet]

These cups leave water available so they can actually see the water. We used to have nipples but they would never drink from them because they always chose the water they could see.

 

[CornerViewFarm]

Once you remove all other water sources they will use nipples, cups, whatever system you decide to use that chickens are not used to.