"Soft Water" Chicken Water.

[Lazy Farmer]

Anyone know any Pros or Cons when using Soft Water (treated hard water)
For your flock.
Especially, new hatches. Softeners use sodium chloride to remove hard water deposits. Anyone that has a water softener system knows it has it's benefits.
You use less soap, and people that experience bathing with soft water for the first time, feel like they can't get the soap off them.
They work by leaving a sodium chloride solution on a bed of resin beads. The water filters thru the beads and comes out cleaner.

 

[Ridgerunner]

If you can safely drink it they can.

Those work by removing minerals from the water. Your chickens would not get whatever trace amounts of minerals they were getting through that water, but those are almost certainly negligible anyway. I consider it not a concern.

That treatment turns the water slightly acidic, which means it will cause metal to corrode faster. When you put that system on an old plumbing system you can get leaks because it removes deposits. If you are watering your flock through metal pipes or metal waterers you might cause them to rust out faster.

Years ago a salesman tried to talk us into putting one on our house city water supply. One of his sales points was that our local water had arsenic in it. He didn't mention that those were trace amounts, a long way below any level that would cause harm. So I asked where we would get out arsenic from, our bodies need trace amounts or our bones go soft. He had no response.

There was not a word of truth in it, in no way is arsenic necessary for strong bones or good for anything else. I just made that up on the spot. I did not like his attitude and how he was misrepresenting quite a few things about the dangers from our tap water.

I really don't see any cons with it other than the cost of buying more chemicals and the work you have to do to add them. Unless there is something wrong with your water I don't see any benefits either, but that's a value judgment for you to make.

 

[Lazy Farmer]

If you can safely drink it they can.

Those work by removing minerals from the water. Your chickens would not get whatever trace amounts of minerals they were getting through that water, but those are almost certainly negligible anyway. I consider it not a concern.

That treatment turns the water slightly acidic, which means it will cause metal to corrode faster. When you put that system on an old plumbing system you can get leaks because it removes deposits. If you are watering your flock through metal pipes or metal waterers you might cause them to rust out faster.

Years ago a salesman tried to talk us into putting one on our house city water supply. One of his sales points was that our local water had arsenic in it. He didn't mention that those were trace amounts, a long way below any level that would cause harm. So I asked where we would get out arsenic from, our bodies need trace amounts or our bones go soft. He had no response.

There was not a word of truth in it, in no way is arsenic necessary for strong bones or good for anything else. I just made that up on the spot. I did not like his attitude and how he was misrepresenting quite a few things about the dangers from our tap water.

I really don't see any cons with it other than the cost of buying more chemicals and the work you have to do to add them. Unless there is something wrong with your water I don't see any benefits either, but that's a value judgment for you to make.

Awesome reply. Very personable and informative.
The reason for the topic.
I noticed, because I use both. Straight from our well and soft for the brooder room since the room is equipped with water.
The soft water turns the bottles pink. Especially in the threads.
Straight well water does not.
Also..
If I fill water containers with soft water outside, algae takes a lot longer to form and a pink slime is present as well.

 

[Lazy Farmer]

Btw.. Yes we drink it. Ice maker/cooking, but cooking heats it up over 165°f(danger zone for bacteria if below).
Ice maker and dispensing unit on frig has a carbon filter.

 

[Lazy Farmer]

Years ago a salesman tried to talk us into putting one on our house city water supply. One of his sales points was that our local water had arsenic in it.

SALESMAN.. hehe. The more he sells the bigger his commission check is.
They are slick... Lol