![Chicken nipples]()
Chicken nipples are valves that dispense a drop of water whenever they are pecked. Industrial chicken-keepers have been using them for years, attached to long hoses that snake through their chickens’ cages. The nipples keep the water clean and tasty.
Luckily for us, chicken nipples have now reached the backyard! We recommend these chicken nipples for mounting in the bottom of buckets and these for side-mount applications.
I just want to purchase 10 more water nipples.How do I go about doing this since you don’t have a phone contact number.
You’ll want to order a 10 pack DIY kit in our homemade chicken
waterer store. I’m glad you enjoyed our waterer enough to come back for more.
Thank you, I love my new waterer!
I’m always glad to hear from someone who loves their waterer as much as I love mine. 🙂
need to know the price of each one?
Please click on the link above for “buy it in our store” and you’ll see the prices of each option.
I ordered mine last week and can not wait to get them.. No more messsss.
I hope you enjoy them!
At present I have 25 chickens and 10 ducks. Will be getting 50 quail first of June. There will be three differant pens. How many of the nipples should I get to properly keep them watered. Also daughter has two rabbits and a guinea pig can they also use this nipple system.
Is there a way to attach these to a hose for hose watering? I have several hundred birds and growing fast, and want to get away from the “containers” since they still have to be cleaned. I have many coops in a line and wonder if there is a way to run landscaping hose with several nipples attached and a water flow restrictor? Will the nipples fit and screw into that?
Oldcountryboy — Assuming you make a PVC or bucket system with plenty of water in the reservoir, we recommend using at least one nipple for every 17 birds. That would mean 2 nipples in your chicken pen, 1 in your duck pen, and 3 in your quail pen as a bare minimum. With that many birds, I usually recommend adding an extra nipple per pen so that you won’t get a bully hogging the water, and to have a smaller waterer on hand in case you need to put someone in an isolation coop, so the 10 pack DIY kit would be perfect for you. If you leave a note with your order, I’ll leave out the hanging wires and throw in an 11th nipple.
Aim — the hose method would work as long as you use a flow restrictor. The instructions that come with our DIY kits give tips on making a PVC pipe waterer that might also be right up your alley.
Can the nipples be mounted on the side of a bucket, so I can set my bucket on my 4wheeler rack to go out to the chicken tractor? We move our chickens all around our farm.
Thanks for your interest. Our nipples are designed to be mounted on the bottom of a container, so you can’t do what you’re thinking of. However, you could make a double-layer bucket that protects the nipples — just cut the bottom out of an extra bucket, slide your bucket waterer inside, and add a spacer between the two, if necessary, to keep the nipples from touching the ground.
We need something that does not leak so badly for use with our guinea pigs. Can you recommend chickennipples for this, or an alternative. They are using vacuum-type water bottles with the lightly-spring-loaded ball bearing in the tube tip now, if you are familiar with the type, and these seem to leak a lot, fast. I realize the piggies drool a lot while drinking, but this is much worse. Any ideas?
Keith
Unfortunately, I think our nipples are too pointy for guinea pigs. I suspect they’d hurt their tongues.
I wonder why your water bottles leak so badly — is there perhaps a hole somewhere that prevents a suction from forming? I wish I could be more helpful!
Well I was just about to give up and send my five nipples back for the promised refund. I recently acquired 15 1 year Black Australorps that had been watered in traditional waterers. After day one they showed no interest and I resorted to small pan of water placed under the five gallon bucket with 5 nipples. After day 2 with still no interest I finally looked at the CD and read the FAQ. Then today (day 3) I spent 3 20 minute sessions sitting in the run, beside the bucket, with the empty pan under and flicking the nipples. They only interest they had was in the drops that fell into the empty pan. BUT…when I returned this afternoon to collect eggs – BINGO! – they were all pecking away at the nipples!!!! WOOHOO!
I’m sorry you had trouble — it sounds like your chickens are in that ornery 2% who need a little extra TLC to adjust to a new system. Very glad to hear you got them trained, though — now they can enjoy clean water!
If anyone else is having problems, our troubleshooting tips are on our website as well as the CD.
Seems like it would function the same way?
Steve — Good question. The internal components of the nipple rely on gravity to keep them from leaking, which is why they need to be vertical. You might be interested in this fun experiment on tilting nipples.
How much would you sale 50 nipples only for?
Jamie — We only sell chicken nipples as part of our do it yourself kits.
Just trying to educate myself on the ins and outs of raising our own chickens and ran across your web site. Just want to say that I’m impressed that you get back to the comments with answers and suggestions. I’m sure I’ll be back to buy a kit from you, probably the 3pack as we’re going to start out on the small side. I’m getting excited! I know it won’t be cheaper than buying at the grocery store, but at least I’ll know what we’re getting and have enough to share with others. Thanks for a great informative site!
I love your product! I turned a Wendy’s pickle bucket into a super
duper waterer in about 5 minutes. So easy and no leaks. I followed your teaching instructions but my hens failed to catch on quickly. But I just left them to their own devices and the next morning, everyone is using the new waterer! Now if I could just create a clean, efficient way for my kids to get a drink of water outside.
I have a question regarding your nipples. I would like to make a waterer from a 1 gallon cooler jug. Do you have a nipple that will fit thru the wall of a cooler jug? We live in the south and would like to give our chick some cool water that will last awhile. Any thoughts on the subject?
Gail — We played around with an insulated water jug for a while and couldn’t seem to get it stop leaking — our nipples are designed to be inserted into thin-walled vessels. However, you can make your own insulated bucket waterer pretty easily (and it can double as a heated waterer in the winter if you do it right). We’ve had good luck wrapping the foil-coated bubble insulation (Reflectix) around the bucket, paying careful attention to the lid, for keeping water temperature on an even keel. I hope that helps!
Hi. I didn’t see where you answered the question of whether or not these will work for raising rabbits.
Gary — Thanks for noticing that — I must have missed that part of the question. One of my friends just tried our chicken nipples with his rabbits. He said the rabbits would drink, but didn’t prefer the nipples — I suspect the pointiness of the nipples might hurt their tender mouths. Or maybe they’re just not used to them yet? So, I can’t say for sure either way yet.
Does the bucket the nipples are attached to need to be air tight or can it be open on top?
Thanks,
Jase
Jase — The bucket actually needs to *not* be airtight, so we recommend drilling a small hole in the lid. Leaving the entire lid off, though, can sometimes result in birds perching on top and pooping in the water — just what you wanted to prevent.
How would you go about heating these waterers for winter use? We live in Montana where it gets below zero on a regular basis and -20 is not unheard of.
Sue G — We’ve had great luck with this heated chicken waterer, but it’s only good down into the teens. That’s perfect for us in the mountains of Virginia — we might have the nipples freeze once or twice a year — but it probably won’t cut it in Montana. On the other hand, I suspect your coop is warmer than -20, and putting the bucket close to the chickens’ perch seemed to help on our cold nights, so it’s worth a try.
Hi Anna,
Just clarify… What do you send overseas? I noticed you say you will not send a kit overseas but do you send the nipples and drill?
Love the idea, saves mess, smell and would help prevent sickness too I imagine.
David — Please see our international sales page for more information. We’re glad to send complete kits overseas, just not premade waterers — the latter are bulky and cost an arm and a leg to mail abroad.
I want to mount a bunch of nipples, spread out and at different heights (I have a very diverse flock), mounted to CPVC, with a 5 gallon bucket elevated reservoir w/ a float valve.
I’d prefer to just use a CPVC tee for each nipple;
What is the threading on these? (1/2\” NPT?)
Thanks,
David
David — That sounds like a fascinating system — I hope you’ll drop me an email (info@avianaquamiser.com) once you work it out.
To tap holes for our nipples, use an R drill and 1/8 NPT pipe tap.
Anna it seems a lot of folks want to try coming out the side of a bucket and such, it would be easy enough to use a 90 degree fitting attached to the side of the bucket which will allow the nipple to stay vertical and still be useful. On a 5 gallon bucket, 3 nipples can be installed to allow more chickens to drink at the same time. Also as mentioned on your other board on copper, if they put some pennies in the bottom of the bucket, they won’t have to clean it as often. Thoughts?
Jim Rusk — We’re actually rolling out a simple PVC elbow product sometime this summer for folks who have trouble making their own. Adding PVC to a bucket definitely makes it easy to build a waterer that’s well suited to your farm, no matter what your space restrictions are.
Any ideas how to use your products in freezing winter climates?
Erica — You’ve got several options for the winter. You can make a heated chicken waterer out of one of our kits, which, depending on the design you choose, should keep your water thawed at least into the teens. Or you can simply select one of our small, premade waterers and use these tips to keep it thawed without electricity.
The pictures I have seen are on buckets or other containers. Can I attach the nipples to a 2 PVC pipe, attach a garden hose to one end, and leave the pressure on or is that too much pressure for the gravity nipples?
R — Thanks for your interest. Our nipples are designed to work under gravity feed conditions, so they won’t work properly if simply hooked into a pipe under city water pressure. There are workarounds, though. You can add a pressure reducer to the line (29 psi or less) or can install a toilet float into a container. I hope that helps!
Hey, I’m a city chicken keeper. Girls in tractors.Limited to 4 hens. I was going to get the original 3 pack due to space saving. Can I heat the original with heat tape or a deicer of types? We live in Northern MI. This winter we hit -40s repeatedly and so I really want to not have water worries along with my “are my chickens freezing?!” worries. Thanks for any help!
Casey — You shouldn’t have a problem making a heated waterer using one of our kits, but it’s tougher to retrofit one of our premade waterers. You can see all of our experiments with heated waterers here. More specifically, this is our current favorite version, and we still have a few of these premade for sale. Our previous favorite was this one, made with heat tape and two five-gallon buckets.
That said, none of these options will work at the -40s Fahrenheit. The nipples on the heated bucket waterer tend to start freezing at the low positive teens and the heat-tape waterer in the high positive teens. For really cold conditions, we just use premade Avian Aqua Miser Originals, which are easy to bring inside overnight. I hope that helps!
We currently use a tradional type of watering system for our chickens and we have an issue with algae forming inside to container. Have you had any reports of algae forming on this device if so, how easy is it to clean?
Colleen — That’s an excellent question. Our Avian Aqua Miser Originals have a transparent container, so if you use them outside you might see algae buildup inside. Inside our coops, we don’t have that problem since there’s not enough light, and the ones we use in tractors are traded out so frequently we don’t see an issue there either. But if you do notice algae, you can just clean the waterer out with a soft-bristled brush and easily wash the algae away.
Our EZ Misers have a non-transparent reservoir, so they’re far less likely to breed algae. We’ve used them out in the open in pastures and have never had a problem with algae buildup.