will water nipples work sideways?

[SeattleChickenHead]

will the nipple waterers work if they come out the side of a hanging bucket? Assuming the buckets full. I want to put them through the fencing like a rabbit cage so they have more floor space, without having a swinging bucket ride to jump on

... And what about the ones for rabbits? Are the nipples too small? Could I run a tube from a bucket reservoir into a little rabbit waterer?

 

[dsqard]

I think it would work but I wouldn't put them too high on the bucket but down towards the bottom.

 

[SeattleChickenHead]

ya, I was imagining a square bucket with 3 nipples at the bottom/ side sticking through the mesh, and that little bucket hooked to a bigger reservoir, feeding it with a food grade flexi tube? bad idea?

 

[minihorse927]

I know it would not work with the nipples I bought because if the metal nipple part is hanging any direction but straight down it will leak. I have seen people use hampster water bottles for chicks before and they don't have any problems with them leaking.

 

[Neil Grassbaugh]

Nipple drinkers for poultry must be verticle or nearly so to work properly and prevent leakage. Simular looking drinkers for animals might work horizontaly but the are certainly not designed for chickens. Yeah, yeah I know your hamster drinkers work great or at least as well as you want to believe they do.

 

[econerd]

our 2 bantams learned to drink from a guinea pig water bottle by themselves, they had a dish of water to drink from but they would rather tip that over and just drink from the bottle anyway. it is mush more hygienic than the standard little drinkers you get as they can mess in it and you get little or no evaporation with the bottle. they just peck at it, quite smart really.
and before you ask, they lived with 2 boy guinea pigs for a while when we first got them, as both the chickens and the pigs had lived with the other (not the same chickens with pigs) for a time from the place they came from. now they have integrated into our flock of bigger birds fine and are outside, where they still have access to the bottle, to prevent them being pushed out by the bigger chickens. they also just prefer to use it.