Ever since the chooks arrived I've been unhappy with their water. I had bought a couple of those plastic water pots with a green dish underneath, but the water in those only lasted three days, or one in summer.
After much head scratching my first attempt was a 20 litre camping drum inside the chookhouse, with some pvc hose running down to a hole in the top of the watering pot.
This was a dismal failure.
I filled the top container, did the lid up, and came back to find all the water on the ground and a twisted, mangled mess of water container.
Clearly I hadn't appreciated how strong a vacuum a metre of water can pull.
Not willing to let a simple engineering problem beat me, I replaced the camping drum with a length of 90 mm stormwater pipe. To fill it up I used a T piece with an inspection cap.
This was slightly better, but still quite dismal.
Sealing the tube was an issue, even using pvc cement. Somehow a slow leak crept into one of the joints, which was a bugger to find. I also had to use grease on the rubber washer inside the threaded inspection cap, This grease would find its way onto the hose, the outside of the cap, and finally to my best beloved's hands which she was not happy about.
And the water still only lasted for three days.
So off to Bunnings I went again, and came back with some more pipe, and a ball valve.
This works really well. The water lasts for well over a week, it's easy to fill up, and no more grease ends up on your hands.
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