Wednesday, June 23, 2010

Poultry Nipples


Any of you who are involved with poultry may remember the problems I was having with water for my chickens. My chickens would stand around them and kick stuff in and poop in them. They would freeze on cold nights. It was a mess and had to be tended to twice a day.

The plastic water containers we were using could not be suspended off the ground like some metal ones. We tried raising them up on blocks, but the hens still perched on them and crapped all over them. The suspended metal ones cost around $40, but we finally found something really cool at farmtek.com.

Pictured above are watering nipples. They sell for around $2 each. All you do is get a 5 gallon bucket and drill a hole that is slightly smaller than the nipple and screw it in. It fits water tight. You hang the bucket a couple inches higher than a chickens head when standing. Chickens, being curious peck at it to see what this new thing is in their area and they get rewarded with water. Each of my chickens taught themselves how to use it on their own.

The water is always clean if you keep a lid on the bucket. It takes about a week for my 20 chickens to empty it. Chicken owners will be delighted with how cool and clean this is.

3 Comments:

Blogger JustRex said...

Hee hee hee! Poultry nipples... Now that's gonna be stuck in my mind all day... I feel like Zippy the Pinhead. Poultry nipples! Poultry nipples! Poultry nipples! Yow!!!

Are we getting watered yet?

6:25 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wish I could use those but I got all the damned ducks that need to be able to submerge their bills or they can choke to death. I asked a commercial duck guy how nipples worked at his place and he said they use a special food the ducks can't choke on.

How do they work int he winter, won't the water just freeze in the little nipple part?

9:09 PM  
Blogger The Guy Who Writes This said...

Darev, I live to entertain you.

Critter, I planned to move it into the coop in the winter. I'll let you know if I have any freezing issues this winter.

5:27 AM  

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