Clean Simple Automatic Chicken Watering System

Tired of cleaning the chicken water dish?  In this video, I will show you the process I used to build our no-maintenance watering system and install it in our chicken coop.  This system was designed to tie into a future rain barrel system that I hope to setup soon.

To teach the chickens how to drink from it, I held each of their beaks up to the chicken nipple until the water dripped out.  It took a few tries for each bird over a period of a couple days, and only when I took away their plastic dish and they were thirsty enough, did they really catch on to the chicken nipples.  The chickens have been exclusively drinking from the nipples for about three days now.


I hope this helps inspire some ideas for your coop as well!

Thanks for watching,

Todd

 

 

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Winter Chicken Watering System No cleaning easy to fill cheap and efficient

Are you sick of cleaning out those traditional water dispensers? For years when I was a kid my least favorite part about having chickens was that I had to go out in the cold and clean out their water dispenser and even though we had it on a hot plate it seemed to freeze anyway. Check out this watering system from the SSLFamlyDad that addresses these issues and saves money on energy.


I have tried different things with other watering systems for the chickens and had mixed results. Although I am probably not done experimenting with different ideas, this is the latest:) This system is made of a small 2 gallon Coleman cooler and a few PVC fittings and small sections of pipe.
I started by removing the spigot that comes installed in the cooler. You can then use a 1/2" male and 1/2" female threaded PVC adapter to connect through where the spigot was. I would recommend using some silicone around the fittings to ensure a good seal.

On the inside of the cooler glue in a 1/2" street 90 and point it upward. This will allow some water to always stay in the bottom of the system so that the heater does not burn up. Next, on the outside or the cooler, you can attach any configuration of piping and the chicken nipples that you would like but I chose a basic spilt setup.

I attached a short piece of pipe to the outside 1/2" fitting and then a tee. One short piece of pipe on each side of the tee with a cap on one side and a 90 on the other. On the side with the 90 I ran that up to another 90 at the same height as I want the highest water level to be in the cooler. This will hopefully prevent overfilling from the outside. This section will be run out through the coop wall so that I can fill it from the outside.

For the chicken drippers you can size up a small bolt that matches the thread size of the drippers for pre-threading the holes. I used an 11/32" drill bit to drill one hole in each side of the pipe coming out of the tee on the bottom. You can then thread in the appropriate sized bolt and back out to create some threads to start the plastic drippers. Use some silicone or thread sealant and thread in the drippers, one on each side. I also wrapped the piping in 1/2 foam insulation and some electrical tape. 


The last things is to mount the 50 watt aquarium heater to the bottom using the included suction cup. I also put a dab of silicone on the suction cup to hold it down firmly to the bottom. I also cut a small notch in the lid threads on the cooler to feed out the cord for the heater as well.

You are now ready to install it in the coop. I made a small shelf for mine inside the coop for the winter but I am not sure if I will continue to keep the system inside the coop as it tends to make a mess. I will update on that later. I routed my fill pipe out the back wall of the coop and placed a small threaded fitting there so I can attach a homemade PVC funnel to it for filling. You could also omit this step and just open the lid and pour in some water that way as well.


Once you are all setup you can just plug in the aquarium heater to electric however you can (extension cord, hardwired electric box, etc). I also use what is called a thermostatic electric outlet in my setup. This outlet only powers on the heater when the temp reaches 32 degrees or below and stays on until it gets up to 44 and then shuts off. This prevents me from heating water when it is warm outside and thus saving on electric costs. I have used this same outlet for a heat lamp in the past and it works great.

Full Video Walkthrough here

All you need for this project below

2 Gallon cooler - http://amzn.to/1MsHgAY
5 Gallon cooler - http://amzn.to/1QyXBZ5
ThermoCube outlet - http://tinyurl.com/qz5aa9c
Chicken Drippers - http://amzn.to/1uQ8PIM

All of these products and more recommended items from the SSL Family are available at the Simple Suburban Living

General Store - http://astore.amazon.com/simpsubulivi-20

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New Baby Chicks Week 6 Not Babies Anymore New Watering System for Coop

Do all of us chicken mamas think our chickens are the best, smartest, and prettiest chickens ever born?  Love must be blind because we really like our chickens a lot.

And our girls even have different colored eyes!  Ours must be eggstra-special (okay, Ill stop).

But seriously, they have been out in their coop now for two weeks and everything has been going extremely well.  No casualties, and they seem very happy. 

Todd also finished the watering system in the chicken coop.

They can access their water outside under the coop.......

....or inside. 

It holds a little over 2 and a half gallons of water, here is where we fill it.  We hope to hook it up to our future rain barrel system one day.


























It took them just a few days to learn how to drink from it. Several times a day, Todd would hold each one and put their beaks up to the chicken nipple, but only when we removed their plastic watering bowl did they finally figure it out. 

Two days ago, they started going into their coop at nighttime on their own.  Up until then, we had to pick up each one and put them in the coop.  That was making me extremely frustrated because they would not go willingly and it would take the girls twenty minutes each night to get them in.  It was mad chicken/children chaos every night at bedtime.   The neighbor kids would even get in on it, too.  Needless to say, were VERY glad that instinct finally kicked in. 

If only we could convince the kids to go to bed on their own........






This post has been shared at:  The Homestead Barn Hop, The HomeAcre Hop, The Backyard Farming Connection Hop, Simple Saturdays Blog Hop

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Chicken Coop Vacation Watering System

Okay, so you have your own backyard chickens and are enjoying some fgresh eggs daily. But what do you do when you want to leave for a vacation? How can you keep them fed and with fresh water? These are some common questions that I get when discussing the suburban chicken coop.

The system I am using here starts with the Poultry Nipples or Chicken Nipples I used in the original chicken watering system. If you havent seen the video or read the article check it out here - https://youtu.be/L1HeDlewEBc.

We were planning a 5-6 day vacation and our current watering system (the temporary smaller one in the chicken tractor) would not hold enough water for that amount of time. Many times people have suggested that I hook a hose up to this watering system to keep it supplied with water at all times. The only issue with that is that when there is any water pressure on the chicken nipples they tend to drip and also spray out small bursts of water when the chickens peck at them. For that reason I do not recommend this as a long terms solution but for our 5-6 day vacation this will work out perfectly.

I took a trip up to Ace Hardware to grab a few fittings to connect a garden hose up to our 2" PVC pipe system. I started with a cleanup adapter so that I could screw on and off this hose attachment, 2" PVC threaded adapter, reducing bushing to 3/4" or 1/2" and the hardest part to find - a pipe thread to hose thread adapter.

Assembly only took a few minutes and I was ready to hook up the hose and see what the result would be. I just turned the hose on slightly to reduce the amount of water pressure as much as possible. As I suspected the poultry nipples did drip slowly and constantly. I added some river rock under the watering system to prevent a mud puddle (which the chickens love to drink from for some reason). And watched it for a day before we left. It worked perfectly! Chickens had a constant supply of fresh water and the river rocks allowed the dripping system to drain and not create any mess.

This is a perfect way to keep your chickens or other small animals with a fresh supply of water for a short period of time. I have plans to incorporate a float supply system when I redesign the main watering contraption so stay tuned for more on that later.

You can purchase the Chicken Nipples here - http://amzn.to/1uQ8PIM

Pipe thread-Hose thread adapter - http://amzn.to/1KHNRnw


All of these products and more recommended items from the SSL Family are available at the Simple Suburban Living General Store


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Music - "Water in the Creek" by Josh Woodward. Free download: http://joshwoodward.com/song/WaterintheCreek

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