hey, so i was thinking... our sump pump flows out to our field [after flooding season in ia we had to do that] and i was wondering. would it be safe to reroute it to water the chickens? i mean would it be poisonous or anything?
Im sure you could, but i wouldnt. I have seen the water in my sump pump, it isnt as clean as the water from my hose. Just my thoughts...
Quote:I would agree however when it rains and forms puddles in the run they drink eagerly from the puddles(loaded with chicken poop and who knows what) which I would think would be way nastier than anything coming from a sump pump. Keith
Depends what you're pumping the water from. If it's from a basement that may have cans of paints and other chemicals or possibly mouse/rat poison, etc...it doesn't sound like a good idea to pump that to the chickens. If it's a bare floor and no chemicals or poisons, sure you could, but that's kind of overkill for watering chickens isn't it? Whatever you use to hold their water would fill up in 10 seconds with a good sump pump and then you'd just have to reroute the hose somewhere else anyway. Also, I think you need a new keyboard...your 'shift' key for capitalizing seems broken.
I would not water any animal with the water that comes out of a sump pump. We built our house (rather, hired a builder and then were out here a lot to watch, and took a lot of pictures). I know how my sump pump is set up. We have 'drain tiles' under our basement flooring. They are 'weeping tiles'- so they look like the black plastic tubes, and have a fabric mesh (of some kind) lining on the inside of these pipes and they have holes in the plastic pipes to absorb any water and drain it away and into the sump pump. What you don't realize is that there are a LOT of harsh chemicals it is drawing from under the house and in the gravel base and from the cement around it. This leaches into the water naturally, it will always be there. Did you know that any chemicals you put on your lawn will leach down into your sump pump system? No, YOU don't put chemicals on your lawn? What about the previous owners or your neighbors, you can't control what they do. I would deem it extremely unsafe for any animal to drink from it for any prolonged period of time. So while it sounds like a great idea to recycle your grey water from the sump pump... I would find another source of clean water.
