Vent: Beyond irritated with Little Giant products.

[LeslieDJoyce]

Why not?

For one thing, the instructions on the Little Giant waterers with the O-Rings tell you not to.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

Most recently I've installed an automatic watering system including Little Giant's Automatic Plastic Poultry Founts ... these are little red plastic bowls suspended from your water line in such a way that they fill when "lighter" and automatically shut off when "heavier". The Big Problem with these is the interior valve of the fount is so tiny and sensitive that just about anything could interrupt the seal ... I'm talking microscopic grit or invisible misalignment ... and when the seal is interrupted the waterers leak anything from a slow drip to a dribble to a stream of water. These proved to be Automatic Coop Flooders instead of waterers. So disappointing. The obvious solution of shutting off and draining the water line, then unscrewing the hardware for the font and rinsing the input side of the screen at the top does not solve this problem ... neither does back washing the nozzle. The mesh on the screen is just not fine enough to filter out particles big enough to cause problems, and I consider this to be a Major Design Flaw. One cannot "clean" the valve without shutting down/draining the system and removing the very, very tiny valve (which takes a special tool or a pair of tweezers, and then the valve is very easy to lose. So I've just installed a filter for my water supply and will see if this helps. The good news is these valves are easy to find at auto supply stores, and don't cost a lot. But still.

UPDATE: Even after installing a fine water filter on the water supply to the coop and flushing the system to make sure the water was perfectly clean, the Poultry Founts still leaked. Nothing I did helped to get them to work properly. We have a landscape installation and maintenance business, so we are not completely unfamiliar with fixing leaky pipes, valves and nozzles and stuff ... but couldn't get the *brand new* valves to seal (not leak). We took the tiny valves out of the faucets for these waterers to our local tire store (you can use tweezers for this, but there are also special tools). The gave us (for free!) some reclaimed valves from dead tires which were "almost" exactly the same as the valves that came with the waterers. After installing the reclaimed valves, the waterers don't leak and have functioned reliably ever since.

It really does seem that Little Giant is using faulty parts for these waterers. What a disappointment. But also what a relief to know my work and investment in running the water line to the coop has not gone to waste and my flock now has a constant supply of fresh water. I told the people at the feed store where I bought the Poultry Founts about the simple solution of replacing the interior valves with an inexpensive part available locally -- it is a less expensive and faster solution than ordering replacement parts.

 

[krcchickens]

In use the nipple watering system and I love it! They always have clean water. Once they get bigger ill just attach the nipples to a 2l pop bottle or to the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket that ill have hanging and ill probably only fill half full.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

For one thing, the instructions on the Little Giant waterers with the O-Rings tell you not to.

They don't say not to use Vaseline
They do say use Olive oil, and make sure it's clean, like I stated before

> PPF Automatic Waterers (PDF 157 KB)

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

They don't say not to use Vaseline
They do say use Olive oil, and make sure it's clean, like I stated before

> PPF Automatic Waterers (PDF 157 KB)

Yep!

 

[Michael Apple]

I use these 3 gallon waterers. Easy to clean and easy to fill. I'm going on six years
with the same ones outside and inside with only replacing one
rubber gasket I matched at a local plumbing supply.