Storey's Guide to Raising Chickens (23 page)

Medications in the water can cause chickens not to drink. Do not medicate water when chickens are under extreme stress, such as during hot weather or at a show.

Large amounts of dissolved minerals can make water taste unpleasant to chickens. To find out if your water supply contains a high concentration of minerals, have the water tested. If total dissolved solids exceed 1,000 parts per million (ppm), find an alternative source of water for your flock.

Chickens should not have to get their drinking water from puddles or other stagnant unhealthy sources. Instead, provide fresh, clean water in suitable containers. Never expect your chickens to drink water you wouldn’t drink yourself.

Waterers, also called drinkers, come in many different styles. The best waterer has these features:

Keeps water clean and free of droppings and other chicken-generated debris

Doesn’t leak, drip, or tip over easily

Furnishes enough water to last all day

Is easy to clean

Automatic, or piped-in, water is the best kind because, at least in theory, it ensures the chickens never run out. But piped-in water isn’t without disadvantages. Aside from the expense of running plumbing to the shelter, water pipes can leak if not properly installed and can freeze in winter, unless buried below the frost line or wrapped in electric heating tape. And if you’re on a well and the power goes out, so does the water.

Silt and other particles in the water may clog the automatic mechanism, so drinkers must be checked at least daily to make sure they remain functional. If your water system lacks a built-in filter, you can minimize clogging by putting an inexpensive fine-screen filter, of the sort used for drip irrigation systems, in the connection between the hose and drinker, and clean it regularly. When shopping for an automatic waterer, look first at how difficult it is to clean. If it can’t be emptied and swabbed out easily, or quickly disconnected for a good scrub, pass it up.

Another feature to watch for is how easy the device is to bend or break. A chicken attempting to roost on the device or chickens running into it while chasing each other may provide enough impact to tip the waterer (causing a leak) or break it off (causing a minor flood). And if larger animals, such as turkeys or four-legged livestock, have access to the same area as your chickens, the drinker must be sturdy enough to withstand their activities as well.

Automatic drinkers that connect to your main water line may need a pressure-reduction valve, which is either built into the device or installed in the line separately. An automatic waterer designed for pets is an example of a device with a built-in pressure regulator and offers an inexpensive option for use with a few chickens. An example of a separate reducer is a float-controlled toilet tank installed between the main line and the drinker; when a chicken drinks, water from the tank refills the drinker and water from the main line refills the tank.

When installing a water line specifically to supply automatic drinkers, include a check valve to avoid the possibility that syphoning will cause contaminated water to back up into the main line. If, as is commonly done, you connect an automatic device to a faucet by means of a hose, use only a standard outdoor hose, as the hose will be under pressure all the time. Any other kind of hose will leak.

A chicken-size water trough has a float valve to regulate water depth. The trough may be placed directly on the ground but is less apt to collect shelter debris if mounted on a stand or bracketed to the wall — provided, of course, the trough may be easily removed for cleaning. A rotating reel on top will prevent chickens from roosting on the edge and fouling the water.

Instead of hooking it up to a water line, you could set up an automatic drinker on a gravity flow system, which is handy where running a water line would be expensive or inconvenient. Water is stored in a tank of some sort, which may be
filled periodically with a hose or by hauling water in buckets, or may be arranged to collect rainwater. We affixed an agricultural water tank to a small trailer that may be pulled by a riding mower to a water outlet for filling, and then pulled back to location. We put a standard valve (faucet) on the tank, making setup exactly like attaching to a regular faucet or a hose. A few pieces of scrap copper pipe tossed into the tank helps control algae.

In addition to single drinkers, automatic systems are also available with multiple drinking stations, commonly used for caged chickens. These devices come in two basic styles, nipples and cups. Chickens must be taught to drink from a nipple, which can be a tedious undertaking. By contrast, a cup holds a small amount of water and automatically refills each time a bird drinks. Larger cups are available for use in open housing, but they tend to collect henhouse debris and are not easy to clean.

For a small number of chickens, hand-filled and hand-carried bell-shaped waterers are available in a variety of sizes and made of plastic or galvanized metal. Inexpensive plastic 1-gallon (4 L) drinkers work okay for young birds but hold
only enough water for a few chickens and are easily knocked over by rambunctious birds. In addition, the plastic cracks after a time, especially if exposed to direct sunlight or freezing weather, and the cost of replacing those “inexpensive” waterers adds up fast.

TROUGH-TYPE WATERER

BOWL-TYPE WATERER

The most common styles of automatic watering devices for multiple chickens are the trough and the bowl.

Metal waterers are sturdier than those made of plastic and come in larger sizes, holding 2 gallons (8 L), 3 gallons (12 L), 5 gallons (20 L), or greater. As in all things, you get what you pay for — a cheap metal waterer will rust through faster than a quality galvanized drinker.