Backyard Farming Forum
Bringing food production home

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.

That is some specialist plumbing there Nice work on getting it to operate.

I am procrastinating the same, I use a tub I fill each day at the moment. I have some nipple drinkers and a stock waterer I want to plumb in and need to do it in the next week or so before we head off so as to not have to have the house sitter fill water every day. Currently contemplating a reserviour, ICB, rainwater tank or existing 100 litre tank made out of 300mm pipe I have. Will probably go with what I have then put a rainwater tank in at a later date to feed it.

Thanks Burnsy

You've got nipple feeders? I looked and looked but couldn't find them locally. I guess the internet makes everything local. If I had some nipple feeders then I wouldn't be mucking around with vacuum seals and such, consider yourself lucky! Of course if I knew how much hassle it would be I would have just ordered some.

Yeah you need something to give you peace of mind on those long trips away, we're going away these holidays for a week and this was one of those things that had been bugging me for ages. Now it's one less thing to worry about.

I couldn't find any nipple drinkers locally either. Ended up getting them from an online chook supply place. That was a few years ago though so I have no idea where it was. Bought a rainwater tank yesterday off Gumtree so will post up my system when I do it.

Found a well priced tank on gumtree so I got the watering system completed. I plumbed out of the tank with a T so I could keep a tap on it and ran direct through into the chook run with 20mm poly.


I then put an isolation valve in before plumbing in the old stock waterer I had lying around and continuing the pipework into the coup.

The pipework runs inside the coup so it is shaded and I plumbed two nipple drinkers to the outside run.

Inside the coup I plumbed in two nipple drinkers. The nipples are all stainless and threaded directly into an end cap. The end caps are not glued on so I can remove them to clean out if ever required.

I was not able to find any info on what height to set the drinkers at. You can see my girls here with them, anyone know if these are to low?

Nice work Burnsy! Did the chooks learn to use the nipple feeders quickly?

I can't say I have seen any of them use them but it appears they might have as some were dripping for the first few days becuase they had been wiggled/used, worked out they were dripping because I had the little weight in them the wrong way round so they were not re=seating properly to seal. Now they have a drip on them sometimes so the chooks would know there is water there. I know they are using the stock bowl as I have removed all other water and they are still alive

Nice work on the tank, I like the way you have princess proofed it

As for your nipples, I don't think they are too low after all the big chooks can always bend down to drink but if they are too high the chicks won't be able to reach.

I'm going to put some in my chook run one day when I get around to it.

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Why did the chicken cross the road? ... To have her motives questioned.

I do like the nipples for watering the chooks.
I have one similar to burns attached to a star picket, expect the chooks keep standing in the rim and now i have to keep checking that it's not dripping water out.

I have it connected to my tank via pump, don't want to forget one day and find the tank empty!

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Brett C.
http://www.allthingsaquaponics.com

Gotta princess proof everything simo, the yougest is a twister, prodder, turner. Isolated the water to the air conditioners and water heater a few weeks back, had me running all over the roof testing everything in a panic till I worked out it was just little hands playing with the valve on the back of the house

No drips or leaks, looks like the chooks are happy with the setup. I did have drips from the nipples early on but on pulling the offending nipples apart I had somehow managed to dislodge the weight above the nipple (when fitting them) so it was not pushing the nipple down with enough force to seal it.

Hi buddy mine have been working well a couple of mine did leak at first but stopped after a few days I don't no what a good height is eitherbut they seem to be drinking OK maybe with a twisted neck

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Rocketrods Courtyard System

Rocketrods Backyard

Rocketrods IBC Blue Barrel Project

Nipple drinkers ebay 10 for $4.50 landed
Found it
Vhttp://www.ebay.com.au/itm/10Pcs-Water ... 4182fa48b8