The Natural Chicken Keeping thread - OTs welcome!

[aoxa]

No never. This is what I use.
http://m.tractorsupply.com/en/store/farm-innovators-multi-use-utility-deicer-250-watt

It sits in the bottom of the bucket. Each bucket has the nipples on the bottom and they hang a few feet of the ground (depending on size of chickens).
I have never had them freeze.
I use these buckets with these Deicers in my brooder too, just smaller 1 gallon buckets. The chicks use them from day 1 and I never have to worry about nasty water... Or better yet, frostbite on wattles.

This is what I would worry about with using nipples in the winter. Even if it stayed liquid, it would freeze when it dripped out causing a lot of mess, wouldn't it?

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote:

This is what I would worry about with using nipples in the winter. Even if it stayed liquid, it would freeze when it dripped out causing a lot of mess, wouldn't it?

Exactly.

I tried 2 different kinds of nipples and both of them DROPPED TOO MUCH WATER WHEN THE BIRDS DRINK. They DIDN'T LEAK. Just dropped too much when they drank.

-This leads to what you see in the photo above...but in the summer that means wet, rotting litter.

-In winter: FROSTBITE HAZARD as that extra water is dripping down wattles and the front of the bird...and potentially on feet.

 

[RedRidge]

No never. This is what I use.
http://m.tractorsupply.com/en/store/farm-innovators-multi-use-utility-deicer-250-watt


It sits in the bottom of the bucket. Each bucket has the nipples on the bottom and they hang a few feet of the ground (depending on size of chickens).

I have never had them freeze.

I use these buckets with these Deicers in my brooder too, just smaller 1 gallon buckets. The chicks use them from day 1 and I never have to worry about nasty water... Or better yet, frostbite on wattles.

This is what I would worry about with using nipples in the winter. Even if it stayed liquid, it would freeze when it dripped out causing a lot of mess, wouldn't it?

I have never had one drip... except into the chicken's mouth of course.
And I've used these for years and have probably 30 of them.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Mine didn't drip either. Just dropped too much water when the birds tripped the triggers. They weren't able to drink everything that dropped so onto the litter it went.

I even put pans under them to catch the water and they'd get full.

But..in the end, I decided that I didn't want to use that kind of waterer whether I had that problems or not. I wanted to give them something they could drink from in a more natural position to a bird.

Just my experience...but I've heard of others having wet litter constantly under them also..and the folks in the photo above seem to be experiencing it too

 

[aoxa]

I have never had one drip... except into the chicken's mouth of course.
And I've used these for years and have probably 30 of them.

Read what LM said above. It's not the dripping that I'm worried about, it would be what drops to the ground when they drink from it.

Does that not happen?

 

[Leahs Mom]

Might want to compare long-term temperatures, too, with the big difference in north to south.

 

[RedRidge]

Wow... I have 4 buckets hanging right in the middle of each coop and have never had anything by dry ground under them. That's awful.
My nipples are the push in type and I use an 11/32 bit for the hole. I have had buckets crack where the handles are after a few years, but have never had a nipple drip, nor give to much water when they drink. I've always had dry ground under mine.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Mine didn't drip either.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Aoxa...
I've long thought about the winter water issue if I had a large barn like yours with LOTS of birds to water. This is what I "think" I'd do if I had those circumstances and weather like we do.

-I've thought I'd put in a circulating water system using something like a pond pump like they use for the little waterfalls.

-I'd use some kind of trough for the actual drinking containers that is narrow enough that they aren't getting wattles into it...but long enough for the numbers of birds I had in each pen/area.

-I'd use hose or pipe to connect the troughs from "room to room" or "trough to trough" and keep the water pumping in a circle with a drum of water feeding it.

-The drum would have the heater in it...probably an aquarium heater that you can keep good and warm...

-The hose or pipe connected to the drum would exit near the bottom and I'd fill it manually from the top during winter.


Not having done this I'd have to tweak it to make sure that everything was circulating correctly, of course.

But...since I don't have a large barn and lots of birds I haven't worked on one. As always, just pondering.

PS and ETA: Seems like I remember that (Fowlman?) may have been doing something like this but his drinking station was a bucket with the nipples. Whoever it was used an aquarium heater and a pump to keep the water circulating...and whoever it was traveled so they were gone sometime a few days in a row and needed something that would keep the water without a lot of attendance on their part.

 

[RedRidge]

Aoxa...
I've long thought about the winter water issue if I had a large barn like yours with LOTS of birds to water.  This is what I "think" I'd do if I had those circumstances and weather like we do.

-I've thought I'd put in a circulating water system using something like a pond pump like they use for the little waterfalls. 

-I'd use some kind of trough for the actual drinking containers that is narrow enough that they aren't getting wattles into it...but long enough for the numbers of birds I had in each pen/area.

-I'd use hose or pipe to connect the troughs from "room to room" or "trough to trough" and keep the water pumping in a circle with a drum of water feeding it. 

-The drum would have the heater in it...probably an aquarium heater that you can keep good and warm...

-The hose or pipe connected to the drum would exit near the bottom and I'd fill it manually from the top during winter.


Not having done this I'd have to tweak it to make sure that everything was circulating correctly, of course. 

But...since I don't have a large barn and lots of birds I haven't worked on one.  As always, just pondering. 

 



PS and ETA:  Seems like I remember that (Fowlman?) may have been doing something like this but his drinking station was a bucket with the nipples.  Whoever it was used an aquarium heater and a pump to keep the water circulating...and whoever it was traveled so they were gone sometime a few days in a row and needed something that would keep the water without a lot of attendance on their part.

Wow... Fancy... Now...
Take it a step further and use a couple of hundred gallon stock tanks and put tilapia in them and you've got an aquaponics system that you can grow veggies above too. ;-)