switching to nipple waterer - in this heat!

[Lmilla]

I'm trying to get my girls to switch over to a bucket nipple waterer - of course I chose today of all days to do it... it's super hot in RVA! Since it's so hot and they still haven't caught on, should I put another water supply in their run? I don't want them to be affected by the heat without knowing how to drink from the new waterer... thoughts?

 

[jenn-]

I would not choose a super hot day to try this. Heck, mine are trained on the nipple waterer and with our 100 degree heat indexes, I have extra bowls of water out.

 

[chiques chicks]

Agreed. Provide water as they are accustomed. Heat kills. They will eventually learn the nipples. It will only take one figuring them out.

 

[snow5164]

I have young chicks , in the brooder they have a dish but when we take them to the coop there's a 5 gallon bucket with nipples . I held each one and placed their beaks on the nipple til it ran on their beak. I know they're small so it is easy to hold them . Then we hit the nipple over and over and when they came to see what that sound was.... They drank!!!we also give them a bowl outside. More water is better!!!

 

[eviemethugh]

We have two different coops with about 100 total chickens trained to use the nipple system....it is so hot the last few days that I let the hose drip and make them a mud hole after I fill up their system and they have been going crazy for the water in the mud hole, so I brought in a bunch of 1 gallon containers full of water and let them go wild because they get more I think from that than the nipples. And these babies were trained from day 1 on nipples.

 

[Lmilla]

Thanks, y'all. I wanted them off the nasty-water- filled bowls, but I'd rather change that out daily than lose one of my girls. They're fully hydrated now! I'll be patient with them in learning how to drink from their new waterer.

 

[jenn-]

Thanks, y'all. I wanted them off the nasty-water- filled bowls, but I'd rather change that out daily than lose one of my girls. They're fully hydrated now! I'll be patient with them in learning how to drink from their new waterer.

I hear you about the nasty water. 10 seconds after I put it down, someone runs straight through it.

 

[blueeyedmercy]

I just started the nipple waterer myself. I knew it was too hot to leave them without any other water, so I have their original waterer out as well. I know my girls love treats so I tricked them into thinking I had a treat by holding a rock in my fingers and they started to peck at it. I moved it over slowly to one of the nipples and one of them hit it "accidentally" and was amazed that water was coming out so she kept pecking. The rest followed suit!!

I had tried holding them and putting their face in it, flicking it to get their attention, letting it drizzle out so they could see water would come out...none of that worked. I'm glad that they finally got it by my trickery though.

My suggestion is to just work with something they like (or trick them with a rock) until they find the water on their own. I also put a bunch of ice to cool the water down so it was more appealing to them. I read to add some sugar to the water to appeal to them as well if nothing else works.

 

[pdirt]

Eventually thirst will drive them to learn the nipples, if ALL other water sources are removed. But yeah, don't do it during very hot weather, wait until it's at least below 90F.

If it's 70-80F, I'd say it's pretty safe to just leave them locked up with ONLY the new nipple waterer until they figure it out. They should figure it out within 8-10 hours, ours took about 2 hours for the first one to figure it out. It took me over 8 hours to confirm most of them were using the nipples and nearly 18 hours to personally witness every single one of them were using them. It was about 75F at the time. I figure that all of them had figured it out long before 18 hours, but since I wasn't around all the time, it took me that long to personally witness each one of them drink from the nipples.

 

[Lmilla]

They figured it out! I looked out at them this morning and saw each of them drinking from the new bucket. So excited that they'll have that clean water all summer... I'll keep putting in a second one while it's hot, but I'm glad my girls got it!