No water, no life…the evolution of our waterers!

Yesterday was all about food.  Today it is all about water.  Chickens have to have lots and lots and lots of water.  Just like us, they can survive without food, but they cannot survive without water.  It is always better to have what you think is too much than not enough.

So, without further ado, our water failures and successes:

First there was the trough waterer (I know, I know, another trough that failed, but at least we learned from it and made a better choice) that was a disaster for the chickens in the run.  We kept two of them in the run and boy was it not good.  They used them for sure, but since they were only 3 gallons and chickens drink A LOT of water, they had to be refilled all the time and they were a nightmare for us.  Not only that, but the chickens would step in them, or worse poop in them when we had them on the ground and even when they were up on a cinder block they got so nasty and slimy and just plain disgusting.  Nature worked against these things and there was nothing I liked about them.  But, I guess you always have to start somewhere and we started at the bottom!  We had a smaller version of this waterer for the babies in the beginning which worked pretty well while they were small, then it became just as bad the bigger the babies got.  So, we learned again and rejoiced when we found the solution!  The one on the left was the one we used for the babies initially and the one on the right is one of the ones used in the run for the older brood.  There are so many people out there that have found a way to use the trough and love it (usually they hang them up), but we are not those people.

Now comes the greatest thing every in terms of watering chickens….the water nipple!  You put as many as you want in whatever container you want and all they have to do is move the metal nipple to either side or up or down and the water comes out.  And guess what, they are red!  We started with the same 5 gallon bucket we used for food and put 6 water nipples in it and put it and the 3 gallon water trough in the run and tried to teach those chickens to use the nipples rather than the trough.  As long as that darn trough was in the run, they wanted nothing to do with the miraculous new water source.  We initially left the trough in the run just in case there were some not so smart chickens that just couldn’t figure out how to use the nipples.  I certainly didn’t want anyone to die of thirst.  It seems change is not welcomed with chickens in the beginning. We finally bit the bullet and removed the 3 gallon trough and low and behold, when push came to shove, they embraced the nipple! Please believe me when I tell you, I am not trying to be off-color in any way, just honest and it really is called a nipple.  Anyway, with the babies, we replaced the 1 gallon water trough with a 5 gallon bucket with nipples when they were just a month old and they loved that thing in a matter of hours.  Absolutely no issue with teaching them to use it at all!

We integrated the babies into the first brood when they were about four months old.  At this point, we kept the 5 gallon water bucket in there because it was low enough to the ground for them to use it while it was on one cinder block.  You want to make sure that the nipple is about the height of their beak when they are standing up straight.  Since this meant adding 20 more chickens into the brood (we had nine older birds), we needed a bigger water source than the one 5 gallon bucket.  We didn’t want to take up run space with a bunch of buckets on cinder blocks, so we thought, how about we just go BIGGER?  Bigger is better, right?  In this case, you are absolutely right!  We used a 35 gallon barrel and put a bunch of nipples on it and set it up on cinder blocks as far to the end of the run we could while keeping it under the roof.  We figured this should last for a darn long time.  It does, in fact.  We don’t have to refill it for about a month.  We still have a 5 gallon bucket in there just because they are used to one, but it probably isn’t necessary. We refill the one 5 gallon bucket once a week and since right now we have two 5 gallon buckets (one in each of our runs) we refill every other week.  Our 29 birds go through about 8-10 gallons of water a week.  Normally we are able to fill all the water containers right from the faucet we installed next to the coop which is really handy.  The only issues we have run into with our waterers (other than they like to roost on them which equals poop on them) is that when we had our snowpocolypse this year, where we had ice, snow, more ice and subzero temps, the nipples on BOTH froze and therefore you couldn’t get any water out even if it wasn’t frozen.  So, the great Hubs would take down warm water down each morning and evening to make sure they had available water (we shut off the water to the irrigation system at the beginning of winter so it would freeze, so we had no water available at the coop).  You can buy water heaters that they make specifically for this reason, but we don’t have power running to the coop and the solar panels and battery don’t make enough juice to power one.  Of course, just like our dogs, they ate the snow too.  I can’t say enough good things about these nipples.  We got them from www.allboutchickens.com. These nipples prevent water from leaking or spilling and keeps the water clean and the buckets stay clean as well.  Since the rest of the winter was pretty mild and our “event” really only encompassed about 2 weeks, we didn’t have to do a lot of extra work to keep those chickens happy.  Remember, happy chickens means happy eggs!  We have attained our goal of having a very low maintenance chickens! Since we are getting at least 20 eggs a day, I think we have happy chickens.

I hope you find this information help, if not entertaining!    Happy Sunday everyone!