Watering chickens

[Robert McGowen]

I have raised chickens for several years and finding a way to give them water was always a hassle, plus it was messy and you had to refill the waterer every day or so. I recently made a 5 gallon waterer that uses valves designed for chickens. I started them on a smaller version when they were a day old and they have never used anything else. It lasts several days with 20+ chickens using it and really works great. The clear horizontal pipe is clear schedule 40 PVC. I am not affiliated with the company that makes the valves, but just wanted to show the waterer that I made using them.

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[Bruce Page]

That’s pretty cool Robert. My aunt & uncle had a large chicken ranch in Redlands Ca. when I was a kid. I remember feeding them grain using a cool electric cart that I would drive down in-between the rows of pens but I can’t remember for the life of me how they were watered. :o

[Mike Henderson]

If you have water to the chicken house - meaning a water pipe - they make automatic waterers for chickens. But I assume you don't have water or you'd probably be using one of the automatic waterers instead of hauling water.

Mike

[Mike Henderson]

That’s pretty cool Robert. My aunt & uncle had a large chicken ranch in Redlands Ca. when I was a kid. I remember feeding them grain using a cool electric cart that I would drive down in-between the rows of pens but I can’t remember for the life of me how they were watered. :o
When you have layers in cages, the way they used to water the chickens was that there was a water trough between the cages. There would be two sets of cages back-to-back with the water trough between them. A hen house would have many sets of cages, with an aisle between each set. So when you went down an aisle, there was a set of cages on each side of you. In the old days, we'd have to feed the chickens manually. The eggs rolled out of the cages to a "trough" in front of the cages and we'd pick up the eggs a couple of times a day. Of course, the space under the cages got kind of rank and had to be shoveled out a couple of times a year. That was a dirty, smelly job. We'd pile the manure up in rows to age - it was too strong to put on plants as it first came from the hen house. When it was aged, we'd use it in the vegetable garden. The plants really liked it.

I know they've automated a lot of things now but I haven't been in a commercial hen house in a lot of years.

Mike

[Bruce Page]

Oh, I remember the smells!

[Mike Cruz]

Hey, Robert. Figured out a way to make that work for beer? I can just see that set up on game day with three guys watching the game...sitting in a row...heads tilted back...pecking at a valve to dispense a chilly brew. ;) :D

[Troy Turner]

Chicken nipples. They work great. They have two types. Ones you push into the hole and ones you screw into the hole. I had to push in ones for a while, but the water out here made them in-op after about 6 months. The screw in ones come apart for cleaning the calcium build up off.

I have a 5 gal bucket in the coop and one outside. The birds love them.

[Mike Cruz]

Troy, the beginning of your post "got my attention"...:D

[David Peterson MN]

I use those too and they are great. It sometimes gets a little below freezing here in Minnesota, so I made a waterer that is a 4 inch pvc pipe 4 ft long that elbows down to a 2 inch horizontal pipe with the chicken nipples in them. I have it wrapped with heat tape. It keeps the water from icing up during those occasional freezing days here.

[Troy Turner]

Troy, the beginning of your post "got my attention"...:D

Try going to the pet store and farm store and having to ask for those...farm store knew what I was talking about, pet store, yeah, not so much :D

[Kenneth Speed]

Troy,


I want to thank you sincerely for a really great laugh. I can't tell you all the follow up lines that flashed through my mind. I had no idea this forum could be so much fun! I also really liked this one from a while ago:
Rub this on your beef for the game and you will win
Honestly, it was a long time before I could summon up enough intestinal fortitude to open that one!



still chuckling!


Ken