Vent: Beyond irritated with Little Giant products.

[frogdog]

I picked up a base and 2 tops (3 & 5ga) from someone who no longer had chickens. $5. The little black cap was missing, but Little Giant gladly sent me one, no charge. I stopped using the darned thing after a few weeks. Sometimes it worked and held the vacuum; other times it would look like it was fine until I dared walk away. Nothing like coming back to a 5ga puddle and thirsty rabbits. A bit of a fuss to clean, also.

What I've tried (and really liked) for the rabbits is a cat litter pan (just a simple one, not any of the larger cover-type...new, obviously) with a trough float valve. Connect to the water container of your choosing and your set. Not frost/freeze proof...that's when we use the rubber hog pans. I've seen a few float-valve water troughs, but most are too small and/or too pricey...more fun to DIY anyway. I haven't tried it yet, but a float valve set into a pvc trough seems like it could fit the bill. A bucket set outside the coop would allow easy filling with a hose.

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[rooster-red]

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This is what I use also.

 

[dangerouschicken]

Yeah, the vaccuum hold on those waterers can be iffy. You really have to watch it or you lose your water all over the place, and have a lot of thirsty chickens

I am wondering about turkeys. Mine dump food everywhere. Any suggestions on what to use as a turkey feeder?

 

[S0rcy]

http://www.petco.com/product/6998/Petmate-Le-Bistro-Waterers.aspx

I use these, there are very large ones at Coastal Farm and Ranch supply. They have worked for me for months.

 

[DaveMN]

I have the metal double wall water founts. I have a 3 gallon that i put out in the yard and a 7 gallon one that i keep in the coop. they have held up for 3 years now. the big one sits on a heater base so that it does not freeze up in winter. i like them because i can take the top off and it up without having to carry it from the coop to the house in 2' of snow.
plus they have enough water to get by for 3 or 4 days in the winter.

 

[mbleily]

I use a large electric heated dog water bowl for the winter. I take out two gal jugs of water. I fill it with one jug and then turn the other one top down into it. the jug lays on the back edge of the bowl. As the water goes down past the opening water is released out of the jug. With the jug layed on it's side almost, the chickens can't knock it over. They don't drink so much water in the winter either so that helps.

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

I came here today to start a thread very much like this one. I have not had a Little Giant product yet that I like. It is so frustrating.

WATERERS:

Does it say anywhere on these products that the plastic is BPA free or food grade? Certainly not at their website.

The one quart plastic waterers ... hard to screw the bases on so they stay on reliablly ... hard to clean around the moulded plastic threads ... No way to hang these waterers to perhaps keep them clean for more than a minute and so they don't tip over when the birds try to roost on top. Of COURSE the birds try to roost on top, that's a given.

The one gallon plastic waterers ... all the same problems as above ... plus the "nesting variety" is too large to pick up or hold in one hand which is not convenient (hold the lid to the cage open with your head, insert entire body into the cage, grasp the waterer in both hands, then try to straighten up ... or flop the lid all the way open and have to find someplace to set the waterer so you have a hand free to close the cage before the birds escape), it is often much harder to "unscrew" the base, and it spits in many directions when it is being flipped (so nice to have the waterer spit poopy water at my face when I'm flipping it over to clean).

The large galvanized waterers ... these started to rust out almost immediately, so were a total waste of money. Yes, I have "special" water, but still. The Big Problem with these is the handle, which is also the "hanger," is not designed to automatically hang straight. The handle is flat across, so even if you manage to perfectly center your carabiner or clip, any small bump will slide the hanger to the side of the handle and the waterer will not be level and the water will spill. I had to deploy a fair amount of problem-solving energy to work around a problem that would have not existed if the handle had a "peak" or notch in the center (like the feeders do). Dumb, dumb, dumb design.

Switch to the large capacity plastic waterers ... in order to remove the tops of these (o-ring handle cap for vacuum sealing the unit) I have to lay on the ground, grip it between my legs and squeeze until I get bruises, then struggle and struggle with both my hands to turn the handle ... the tops have to be put on this tightly to seal properly (and sometimes it isn't immediately obvious that it isn't sealed properly and you get a delayed flood), and I can "just" manage to do this myself by gripping it between my feet ... people with two good "man hands" have less difficulty, but still! Also, there are ridges and groves inside which are difficult to clean. Also, it isn't that easy to detach the base as it works best with three hands (two on the clips on the base, one to lift the waterer out of the base). Also, the handle on this waterer is also flat, so there are the same problems "centering" the hanger as with the galvanized waterers mentioned above, and the handle is much thicker, so the "work around" wasn't the same ... nothing like having to solve the same problem two different ways to brighten your day.

For my ducks I bought Auto Poultry Waterer with Cover (a red bowl with galvanized center piece -- yeah, I know, galvanized stuff that will rust PDQ), and an innovative magnetized tent cover to keep the birds out of it and keep it clean(ish) ... supposedly attach this to a garden hose and you're good to go. Sounds too good to be true, right? It is. For one thing, it isn't the easiest thing to connect to a hose because the PLASTIC threaded connection doesn't swivel, so you have to clamp the hose between your knees and use both hands to perfectly align the threads of the waterer to the threads of the hose, then turn the whole waterer being careful not to cross-thread it, and then once you've gotten it "tight" any stiffness in the garden hose means it isn't going to be perfectly aligned to sit flat on the ground. But this is just an annoying feature, not really a big problem. The Big Problem is that there is a LOT of back spray where the hose connects to the waterer ... so don't plan to use this anywhere near your coop or anywhere you don't want a big puddle. You can't upgrade the connection to metal threads because the exterior threaded part that screws to the hose to is also the interior float valve connection. So I bought a double ended "quick release" garden hose connector, used generous quantities of plumbers tape as advised by a plumbing associate, and attached that to the waterer, then attached the garden hose, also with plumbers tape. I still got lots of back spray at the point where the quick release connector screwed onto the waterer, so I tightened it as much as I could with wrenches, and it is still leaking. Also, fiddling with it to get it to shut off when full foreshadowed complete failure of the float valve system at a later date -- another delayed flooding opportunity brought to you by Little Giant. Sigh.

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.


FEEDERS:

The main issue I have with the 30# galvanized poultry feeders is that the chickens beak the food out of the feeder and onto the floor. This was a HUGE issue when I was feeding crumbles (the wasted three full feeders of feed in one morning ... that's 90 pounds of poultry feed serving as rancid bedding in my coop). I gave up on this type of feeder in favor of some I made from large PVC pipe (at a FRACTION of the cost of the Little Giant feeders). The Little Giant feeders main design flaw is the lack of a "lip" to prevent the birds from nuzzling the food out over the edge of the "trough." A trough with a top and access holes (like the chick feeders, but adult sized) would be an even better design, IMO. At least the feeders have a notched handle so they hang straight without modification. Thanks for tossing me that bone, Little Giant.

The Galvanized Slide Top feeders (for chicks) don't slide very easily, twist and bend, and have sharp edges so keep the bandaids handy.

The Galvanized Range Feeders might be nice for feeding fermented feed if they weren't, you know, metal.

There is precious little information available about these products at the Miller Manufacturing Company website. As usual, I have found more trouble-shooting information here than anywhere else.

I am becoming quite desperate to find quality poultry products, and am stunned at the shabbiness of what is available -- none of these products are exactly inexpensive.

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

Quote: You don't have to fill them full.
You can just as easily put only one or two gallons

If the lid is hard to get off, leave it on and fill through the small hole with the waterer laying on it's side.
It's a little slower, but requires a lot less effort

I've gotten good service from all my Little Giant products. I have one 5 gallon fountain that's nearly 10 years old, and 3 others with the newest being 5 years old

I think a lot of the "problems" are abuse and "operator error"

The O ring problems can normally be solved with a little lubricant like vegetable oil or Vaseline, and making SURE it's clean and wet before you put the lid back on.

Dirt in the "automatic" types can be stopped by adding a small piece of coffee filter in front of the screen. or a fiber filter in the hose

You can always scrap what you have and buy something "different" , but reality is raising animals is DIRTY, and equipment always needs some maintenance, and whatever you buy will still have the same problems

 

[LeslieDJoyce]

You don't have to fill them full.
You can just as easily put only one or two gallons

If the lid is hard to get off, leave it on and fill through the small hole with the waterer laying on it's side.
It's a little slower, but requires a lot less effort

I've gotten good service from all my Little Giant products. I have one 5 gallon fountain that's nearly 10 years old, and 3 others with the newest being 5 years old

I think a lot of the "problems" are abuse and "operator error"

The O ring problems can normally be solved with a little lubricant like vegetable oil or Vaseline, and making SURE it's clean and wet before you put the lid back on.

Dirt in the "automatic" types can be stopped by adding a small piece of coffee filter in front of the screen. or a fiber filter in the hose

You can always scrap what you have and buy something "different" , but reality is raising animals is DIRTY, and equipment always needs some maintenance, and whatever you buy will still have the same problems

You do know not not to use Vaseline on the O rings, right?

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

Quote: Why not?