Waterer for chicks?

[chickety]

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Off-topic, but I'd love to see pics of your new guinea pig tote set-ups, if you have any!

 

[shelleyd2008]

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Off-topic, but I'd love to see pics of your new guinea pig tote set-ups, if you have any!

Right now the guinea pigs are living in a dog crate out in the yard, but I'll try to get a pic of their tote for you!

 

[granmahen]

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I despise those plastic bottle waterers with the red tray. I think the pine wicks the water out into the rest of the bedding when the babies kick it into the waterer. I tried putting the waterer up onto a deck of sorts using a small cement stepping stone but as the babies get bigger they just knock the whole thing over. I almost exclusively use small animal water bottles now. The chicks get the hang of it quick enough. And no mess. More chicks, more water bottles.

 

[cawooduck]

I built a brooder that is 6' long x 2' wide and 13" tall. It is broke up into 2' "sections" with the end sections of the brooder are plywood for the shavings and the middle section is 1/2" hardware cloth. The middle section is where the water and food go, so if there is any spillage it goes onto the ground. For the first week of brooding i put papertowel down on the wire section until their feet grow, after that i take it away and have no problems!! As for those quail bases, i hate them, they are a pain in the butt and unless you have an absolute level bottom they tend to leak. I went back to the chick style waters and just add clean rocks to the bottom, just enough that they cant get wet and drown, after about 4 days i take the rocks out and have never had a chick drown.

If you are using totes and dont want your bedding to get wet, make a 13" x 13" frame out of 1" x 1" boards and staple 1/2" hardware cloth to it, then take a pan, set it on the floor of the tote and put the wood/wire frame over it then place the water on the wire. Any water that spills goes into the pan and keeps the bedding dry.

 

[Swamp Roo]

I've had the same problem. I do one out of two things. BTW this works for chickens as well. First and easiest is to put a square chunk of 2x4 under it. When they are really young, I'll put something just a touch lower in front of it as kind of a platform (but without the shavings to get in the water). Usually I just deal with the shavings for the first bit until they can reach onto the block of wood. This works great until they get big enough to roost on it and knock it over or they go into their "I'm in the Army Corp of Engineers" stage and pile up mountains of shavings. Then (And I just started doing this) I suspend the whole nine yards. I use aluminum electric fence wire (because it was there). Take about five feet of wire (depending on the height of your jar), double it and the put the mouth of the jar between the doubled "legs" of the wire right at the shoulder of the jar . Now twist the wire the wire on both sides trapping the jar in place, make sure the wire is centered. Bend wire up the sides of the jar and tape to the sides. I use duct tape, but electric or other tape would be fine. Now take both wires (should be two strands per side of the jar) and twist together over the top. One side will have the bend in it from where you doubled the wire to start with, use that as a loop to hang the waterer, or if it is really long, bend it into a hook. Cut the other side back a bit. Takes longer to explain than to do. You could just tape wire or string in a loop to the jar as well, but it won't last as long. The other nice side effect of the wire going over the top of the jar is it creates an effective roost guard. I will adjust the waterer height to match the size of the growing chicks. I put it at shoulder height, low enough that they don't really have to strain to get to it, but high enough that they don't try to climb on/in it. Same thing with food, a lot less waste.

Swamp

 

[Isablahblah]

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I have my chicks drinking out of a rodents water bottle. You know the little ones for mice, the big birds use the rabbit size.

I just tried the rodent water bottle i dea and it worked! Thanks You so much! Now i don't have to change it constantly!