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Please note: The Avian Aqua Miser is no longer available!
What’s so special about the Avian Aqua Miser?Watering used to be our least favorite part of chicken care. As we pulled our chicken tractors over uneven ground, watering containers would tilt and drain dry leaving our chickens thirsty on hot summer days. Our chickens pooped in the waterer reservoirs and on top of the handles — nasty for us and them! The Avian Aqua Miser solved all of our problems. Our hens now get to drink nearly unlimited clean water! Plus, in the summer we can pamper our hens by putting ice cubes in the Avian Aqua Miser for hours of cool drinks.How does my chicken drink out of the Avian Aqua Miser?
The chicken nippleat the bottom of your Avian Aqua Miser is designed to release water from the reservoir when touched. Your chickens will quickly learn to peck and lick at the nipple because of their attraction to the color red. If they don’t catch on right away, poke the nipple a few times with your finger, letting the water drip out onto the ground, and your chickens will soon figure it out. Instructions that ship with your waterer will give you a more detailed approach which works for recalcitrant hens. Our hens figured out the nipple in less than five minutes!
How many Avian Aqua Misers do I need?
An average chicken drinks 100 mL of water (a little less than half a cup) on a cool day, but can drink three times that or more on a hot summer day. Older chickens also tend to drink considerably more water than younger birds. Since the pre-made Avian Aqua Miser holds 2,000 mL of water (about half a gallon), we recommend purchasing one unit for every five hens. Buy an extra if you want to be able to go out of town for the weekend!
Folks with large flocks have had good luck buying our DIY kits and installing the nipples in the bottom of a five gallon bucket, or using one of the innovative designs we highlight on the CD that ships with each kit. If you use a large enough reservoir, you only have to make sure your chickens don’t fight over the nipples — provide at least one nipple for every 17 birds. If you have one mean hen, it can be handy to provide two different waterers on opposite sides of their living area, and I like keeping a spare waterer around in case I need to isolate a sick or broody chicken.
Where should I hang my Avian Aqua Miser?
The Avian Aqua Miser should be hung so that the base is approximately 18 inches above the ground. (We sometimes recommend hanging them lower for the first day so that your chickens are sure to notice them.) We’ve hung premade waterers from the top of chicken tractors, mounted them on the side of brooder walls, and used many different techniques to mount bucket waterers. The attached hanger makes it easy to hang your Avian Aqua Miser from just about any surface; it’s flexible and can be bent a few times if you need the hook to face in the other direction.
How should I care for my Avian Aqua Misers?
Aqua Misers require very little care. Rinse every few weeks with warm water and your chickens will be drinking clean water all day long!
Does the Avian Aqua Miser work in the winter?
The Avian Aqua Miser shouldn’t be frozen, so we recommend taking it in on winter evenings then putting the refilled waterer out the next morning. On extremely cold days, you may need to swap your cold
unit out for one full of warm water during the day. Alternatively, our do it yourself kits come with tips for building heated chicken waterers that make winter care even easier.
Is the Avian Aqua Miser’s plastic container safe for my birds to drink out of?
We use food-grade plastic in our Avian Aqua Misers to protect your chickens’ health. However, adding vinegar to the water could cause the plastic to degrade.
Why haven’t I seen anything like this before?
The Avian Aqua Miser is based on the method big chicken farms use to water their birds. On the industrial farms, multiple nipples are attached to a long hose so that each bird has a way to drink clean water in its own cage with no spillage. Unfortunately, the hose setup is hard to carry over to the backyard chicken operation since many nipples require high water pressure to work. We developed the Avian Aqua Miser to be the best of both worlds — clean, fresh water for your chickens to drink, but no hoses to drag behind your tractor or clutter up your yard.
Will the Avian Aqua Miser work for ducks? Geese? Turkeys? Quail?
Yes to all of the above! We’ve had reports that our waterers work perfectly for pigeons, turkeys, guineas, and even waterfowl. However, ducks should also be given a wading pool or other body of water to swim in (or at least to clean their eyes).
You may need to mount your waterer higher or lower than the height listed in the instructions depending on your birds’ stature — the goal is to have your birds reach up to the nipple in the bottom of the waterer, but not to have to strain to reach it. Your birds may also drink more or less than the amount listed above depending on their size — use your common sense and assume a full grown turkey drinks a lot more than a duckling.
I need to no How to keep chicks from dieing .It is nice warm I had 8 3or 4 days old I never raised them be fore I need help keeping a live .I like watering ideas I had two that some thing was wrong with them and three days and another one of by it self. Thank you Mothers day gift.I always wonted some chickens,I am 37years old and I always thought love my bays
I’m sorry you’re having trouble with your chicks — I know how heart-breaking that can be! I suspect that the problem was present in the chicks before you even got them. In most cases, if you see losses within the first couple of days of bringing chicks home, they were already suffering from some sort of stress and there was nothing you could do. On the other hand, there’s a lot to know about new chicks — I recommend you check out one of the many books on that subject. Good luck!
we live in a cold place what should we do to keep our chickens warm?
Traditionally, a brooder is used to keep chicks warm for their first three weeks. Most people use a high wattage light bulb, but we’ve liked Brinsea’s Ecoglow Brooder much more. Pricier, but worth it.
I purchased your nipples for our quail but had to leave town the day they arrived. I was thrilled when I returned two weeks later to find my dad had read the instructions & installed four nipples on a square bucket & placed it on boards for the day old chicks. We are very pleased the babies took right to this new waterer & once he got the height correct we have no wet babies like our old system caused. Thanks for an awesome product.
Thanks for sharing! Too bad I can’t send a handy father with each DIY kit. 🙂
My birds are thanking you for making it so easy for their owner to care for them. Everybody is happy; they learned how to drink quickly, this is one of those rare products that far exceeds expectations. Over the course of a year, you have given me the gift of many hours I can use for less mundane tasks. Can’t wait to try out some water heating ideas for our -35C winters.
Thanks so much for sharing that, Bruce! I’m always thrilled to hear that the Avian Aqua Miser makes someone else’s life as easy as it makes mine.
I just received some chickens but i raise pigeons and doves, would the Avian Aqua Miser work with pigeons and doves?
At least two of our customers have used our waterers for pigeons/doves and have had no problem.
hi
why cant i buy the nippler chicken water
im from malaysian
have ship to send come in malaysian
and give me how cant i give nippler chicken water
Mamat mlake — The only non-U.S. countries we currently ship to are listed here. Unfortunately, it’s just too much of a hassle to ship to other locations, although we may eventually add more countries.
How would you recommend setting up the aqua miser for pigeons, seeing as they fly about a lot more and we are having issues with our old watering system and dirty poopy water.
We also have Chukar partridges. Would this system work for them?
Kristin — Your pigeons will be drinking while they’re perched (or on the ground), so I’d recommend setting up an Avian Aqua Miser at eye level at one of their gathering spots. Maybe near where you give them food?
We haven’t tried our waterer with Chukar partridges, but I suspect they’ll have no problem with it since quail, peacocks, ducks, and a lot of other types of poultry take to it as well as chickens do. Please do report back and let us know how it goes!
I am so happy I found your chicken watering nipples. I have tested them and am very pleased with them and have just ordered the twenty pack.
Keeping my chickens and livestock healthy is important to me. Last year a friend of mine told me about a product he is using that helps keep his cattle water tanks clean of algae and keeps his cattle healthy.
I started using it in my regular metal waterer and it works great. All it takes is two drops of the product to a gallon of water. The chickens have done better laying eggs this year then in years past and I am so happy to have found your Aqua Miser tips. With both the tips and the product I am looking forward to seeing how well they do this year.
This product has proven research backing it not only in watering livestock but applying to plants in gardens. I used it in my garden this year, which was very dry and hot here in central Texas, with great success.
If you would like to contact my friend for all the information his contact information is:
Paul Lindholm with Flying L Distributors email: paul.lindholm@gmail.com
The product is make by Shaklee and called Basic H which is an organic household cleaner and I highly recommend it.
I just wanted to pass this information on to you and your customers. When we find things that really work we should all pass the information on to each other as I have already told people about the watering devices.
Thanks so much,
Charles
Charles — Thanks so much for sharing (and for your repeat order)! Hopefully your tip will be helpful to a lot of our readers.
I am hatching some quail, but have no idea how to care for them!
(I know it sounds foolish; I should of read up before getting the eggs, but I was in a hurry.) I can’t find any websites that tell everything I need to know. Do you know of a site?
MADZ — Unfortunately, I haven’t had any personal experience with quail. I think that in your shoes, I’d drop by the backyard chickens forum, or just do a google search to answer your questions. Good luck!
Thanks for such a fantastic item. Raising ducklings, meat chicks and chickens and this item has been a God-send to help me keep things neater. Thanks from Maine
I have an established flock of 7 birds of varying ages and want to build a heated waterer for the upcoming winter using water nipples to replace an older waterer. Will they naturally figure out how to get water out of the nipple or is there a technique for teaching an old bird new tricks?
Anonymous — You can read all of our training tips here. The short version is — you’ll need to take their old waterer out the night before, but most chickens don’t need training beyond that.
It is day 23 of lockdown, and my incubator is now foggy/cloudy. Is this normal? Does this mean the eggs are beginning to pip?