Was At Wits End With Hen Spilling Chick Waterer

[LoveOfFeathers]

I was using a one quart jar waterer, my hen would kick it off the three inch tall paver stone and soak her chicks shavings. Then the risk of coccidia and the smell of wet shavings and poop, I was cleaning the pen everyday. I got fed up with her today, said some not so nice words then remembered that I had long ago bought some soda bottle water cups. I needed to find something bigger than a 12oz soda bottle to hold the water, a light bulb went off in my head, ‘my vinegar comes in a qt glass bottle with a smaller cap, wonder if it’ll fit the drinker cup?’ It fit!!!! While admiring the tinny three inch spring that comes with the cups I was thinking, ‘no way is this going to fit around the big ass bottle.’ Some zip ties later and tada it works like a charm. The good news is I didn’t cut the wire for the bottle to rest on, I used a zip tie to support the cup.

I just want to say that this way also worked, it’s sitting on a paver while supported by wire.

 

[Debbie292d]

Cool! So could you just lower that for baby chicks with no mom? Like we currently use the vertical nipple bottles with a wire around them and hooked on a hook, but it swings around and those kind of nipples whip water around when they all get pecking it at the same time.
We use horse bedding pellets in the brooder which then become sawdust when wet, so I've often got little chicks taking "dust baths" under the water bottle lol. I've got to figure something else out and maybe that cup idea would work better!

 

[kcan2]

Brilliant innovation! High five to you, the chicks, and your soccer mom hen (who is out of a job in kicking the last waterer over)!

 

[LoveOfFeathers]

Cool! So could you just lower that for baby chicks with no mom? Like we currently use the vertical nipple bottles with a wire around them and hooked on a hook, but it swings around and those kind of nipples whip water around when they all get pecking it at the same time.
We use horse bedding pellets in the brooder which then become sawdust when wet, so I've often got little chicks taking "dust baths" under the water bottle lol. I've got to figure something else out and maybe that cup idea would work better!

It could work. Depth of water is about one inch? You could control depth with pebbles or glass stones.

https://www.amazon.com/Colors-Bottle-Drinker-Spring-Chicken/dp/B01N48UAU0

I always thought that the wire had to be cut to use these, I ordered them in April of 2022 but I’m glad I found a solution with zip ties.

 

[Debbie292d]

It could work. Depth of water is about one inch? You could control depth with pebbles or glass stones.

https://www.amazon.com/Colors-Bottle-Drinker-Spring-Chicken/dp/B01N48UAU0

I always thought that the wire had to be cut to use these, I ordered them in April of 2022 but I’m glad I found a solution with zip ties.

Our older chickens use a 5-gallon nipple bucket, so these verticle nipples I thought would help pre-train them as the in-between waterer is also a smaller container with horizontal nipples. I've shied away from cups as those would get dirty and need cleaning so never even considered them. But for the young chicks, this is actually way better of an idea and would be less work cleaning those than having to clean out a little pile of wet sawdust twice a day! Glad I saw your post and thank you for the link! We're going to try it!

 

[LoveOfFeathers]

Both waterers held up, the soccer hen didn’t make a mess and they still had water at the end of the day.

 

[kcan2]

Totally unrelated, but your anti-mess discovery reminded of one of mine: treat skewers threaded through the hardware cloth helps keep the food off the ground!