How much can you tilt chicken nipples

January 30, 2012 Posts No Comments
Corgi

10
Degrees ( with Welsh Corgi as witness )



Our chicken nipples are
meant to be installed vertically in the bottom of a container, but
Michael envisioned a PVC pipe waterer that was so slanted it could
water everything from the smallest chick to the biggest turkey. 
He emailed to ask how much of an angle the nipples could handle before
they started leaking.



“I’m not sure,” I
responded.  “But if you find out, please let me know!”



With the help of a handy
iPhone app, Michael was able to put his waterer to the test, tilting it
more and more until the nipples started to drip.  Here’s Michael’s
experiment in his own words:


Tilted chicken waterer

15 Degrees – No Leaking
Yet….


PVC pipe waterer

18 Degrees – All OK!


Chicken nipple angle

20 Degrees – Still OK!



Chicken nipples leaking23 Degrees …..getting a
little wet, but not dripping



Chicken experiment

27 Degrees and not
dripping ( ! )



Chicken nipple limit

30 Degrees! Not really
dripping but close. End of “Test”.


If you decide to follow
Michael’s lead, be sure to install the nipples vertically in the
container before tilting it so that you get a good seal.  Our do it yourself
chicken waterer kits
give you lots of other tips to make the best waterer for your backyard
flock.

Chicken nipples in pressurized water systems

January 27, 2012 Posts No Comments

Automatic dog bowlSome of our customers have
written in to ask if there is an easy way to convert our chicken
nipples to work on pressurized water systems.  One option is to
install a pressure reducer in a hose, or you can use a toilet
float to keep a
bucket reservoir constantly full (a method that is covered in more
depth in the CD that comes with our do it yourself kits.)



Or, as Byron wrote in:


Another
cheap method is to buy an automatic dog water bowl that connects to the
garden hose, mount it high, and do the same thing.  Trouble with
this is the bowl is open to atmosphere and requires cleaning, and the
valves aren’t as robust as toilet valves.



I can definitely
envision turning one of these plastic dog bowls ($19
on Amazon) into a
chicken waterer.  I’d probably add some kind of lid to keep the
bowl clean, though.


Our chicken waterer never spills or fills with
POOP.

Hidden eggs

January 23, 2012 Posts No Comments
Eggs in nest

Chicken shelterI complained that our
heirloom breeds had stopped laying in December, but now I’m not so
sure.  Mark had put a
shelter out in the
woods when we added
our sussex to the main flock since the younger birds were getting
picked on and weren’t always going in the coop at night.  Last
week, we took a peek inside the now-unused shelter and found…eight
eggs!!



The eggs all passed the float
test (and didn’t
have any cracks from being frozen solid), so I suspect they’re a week
or less old.  They all look like australorp eggs too, which would hint
at that breed being better at winter laying than the cuckoo marans.



We’ll keep an eye on
this supplemental nest box for now, but I’m pondering whether the
shelter wouldn’t work as a broody hen nesting area for the
spring.  It clearly passed the test as a nest box.


Our chicken waterer is a perfect fit for brood
coops since it keeps the bedding dry and never drowns chicks.