Chickens: Chicken nipples and poop-free water April 2013

I have longed for a way to water the chickens without refilling AND cleaning the waterer often as I do now. Again, google and YouTube came through for me....Chicken nipples!!! (btw-this will certainly work for other small animals too)  My husband ordered some for me online and they've been sitting on the counter for a few weeks. I've gone over in my mind how I want to use them and came up with several different designs and this morning I finally figured I'd try to make it happen. Online, there are so many ways to make a  poop-free waterer but nothing really caught my eye. I wanted to use something I had around the house to keep costs down but I want it to look good so I began my search around the house. I found an ice cream bucket, empty plastic protein powder jug, and an apple cider vineger bottle.  I practiced on some small breast pump bottles I had laying around to make sure I had the right drill bit. What I found is that the drill bit size will vary based on the thickness of the plastic. My watering nipples came from Hong Kong with no explanation so I had to figure this out on my own.  For instance..the first one I did was with the ACV bottle. I wanted a portable waterer for the chicken playpen that I move around the yard so this was perfect. I've also read that ACV is good in the chicken's water so I didn't even rinse it out. I used a 3/8 in drill bit and loads of teflon tape on the nipples, screwed one in, tested it for leaks and what do you know...Success!! The chickens took to it right away, too. They peck at anything and the red nipple was extremely tempting for them. Awesome!


Watering Nipples




Portable waterer from an Apple Cider Vinegar bottle (plastic)

 I figured since that was successful, I would move on to a bigger one for the coop. This one will be connected to the auto drip system from the adjoining garden so the chickens will have a constant fresh supply of clean poop-free water. At least that's what I see in my head.
I started with the ice cream bucket. Cute and had a handle.. perfect, right? Wrong. What I found with this experiment was that the 3/8 in drill bit was too big. The plastic was much thinner than the ACV lid and even with loads of teflon tape it leaked like crazy. Bummer. But it did look good.

Baby was still sleeping so I moved on to the protein powder jug which had much thicker plastic. This time I used a smaller drill bit (5/16) and moved the drill around a bit to make the hole a bit bigger. The nipples were extremely tight when I screwed them in and after a leak test---again---Success!!  I hung it in the coop and will wait for hubbie to connect it to the auto drip. I'll see if that jug is big enough and if not I'll move on to the cat litter bucket I have waiting in the wings.  It's been a good morning.