Author: Anna & Mark

Quail waterer and business

July 7, 2010 Posts No Comments
Automatic quail waterer

“I got
started a year
and a half ago with a stray quail, and it got out of hand from there,”
Steve Blair explained when I asked him about his quail hatchery
business.  Clover Quail Farm, located outside Clover,
South Carolina, sells quail eggs for eating and for hatching, as well
as day old chicks.



Steve emailed me the
photo at the top of the page, showing his two day old quail chicks
drinking out of one of our homemade chicken
waterers.  He
was very self-affacing when I asked him if I could post about his
business on this blog.  “Sure I would appreciate any promotional
exposure,” he wrote, “However I am just a small backyard farm.”



Those of you who love
your poultry and are looking for a way to get your significant other
off your back about feed costs might consider trying out Steve’s
business model.  A breeding pair of an interesting chicken variety
combined with a broody hen may be all you need to bring in a little
extra “egg money.”

chicken photo contest

July 7, 2010 Posts 4 Comments

Chickens drinking from DIY watererThis
year’s photo contest will have several categories and prizes, so you’ll
have an even better chance than usual of winning!  Please read
this entire post to make your entry the most likely to suceed.



Deadline: July 18, 2012

Entry instructions:
Email up to three digital photos to info@avianaquamiser.com. 
Your photos should be no more than 4 MB in size, and if they’re large
please send one per email.  In addition, please include a written
description with your photo(s).  If you win, we’ll email you back
to
ask for your mailing address.

What we’re looking for:
We judge entries based on the factors outlined in the next
section.  You might like to look at the winners of previous
contests to get an idea of what we like:


2012 categories: When you
submit your photo(s), please include a note with each one telling me in
which category you’d like to enter your photo.  Your options are
outlined below:

  • Artistic chickens: The
    winning entry in this category will be a beautiful photo of your
    chicken(s) drinking from either our premade waterer or a waterer you
    made from one of our do it yourself kits.  We’ll be judging the
    entries in this category nearly entirely on artistic merit.
  • Chicks, peacocks, and more:
    Entries in this category will showcase baby birds or birds of species
    other than chickens.  We’ve heard from lots of customers who have
    used our waterer with quail, turkeys, pigeons, and many other birds,
    and we’d like photographic evidence!  We’ll be judging the entries
    in this category based on uniqueness combined with artistic merit.
  • Heated chicken watererIngenious waterers: This
    is the category for the inventors among you.  Our customers have
    turned our do it yourself kits into a vast array of waterers perfectly
    suited to their setting.  We’ve seen bucket waterers fed by
    gutters, heated waterers of all kinds, and many other unique
    options.  The winner in this category will be judged based on
    ingenuity of both the photo and the written description, so spend a few
    minutes polishing your words when you submit your entry.



Prizes: The first prize winner in each category will receive
their choice of either a 10 pack
DIY kit or our working
chicken combo pack (three pre-made waterers).  The second
place winner will receive their choice of either a 3 pack
DIY kit with drill bit or one pre-made
waterer.  Several other
honorable mention winners will be showcased on our website.

The fine print:
All photos entered in our contest become the property of Anna Hess and
Mark Hamilton.  We don’t care if you use them for other things; we
just want the right to put them up on our website and potentially use
them in our instructions, ebooks, and print books.  By submitting your
photos, you’re agreeing that you won’t receive any further compensation
for the use of your photos and text.

Drill bit and expanded instructions

July 6, 2010 Posts No Comments

Drill bitOver the last year and a half, our customers
have given us a lot of feedback.  Several folks used the wrong
size drill bit to make their homemade chicken waterers since the right
size is difficult to find at many hardware stores.  Unfortunately,
if you use the wrong drill bit, your waterer leaks, which defeats the
whole purpose.  Mark finally found a supplier where we can buy
drill bits in bulk, so now you can add on the proper drill bit for just
$5 when you buy your kit, saving yourself a lot of running
around.  For customers with a very well-stocked toolkit, we’ve
kept the lower priced option on the shelves.

18 months of customer feedback summarized in expanded instructions

Although no one
complained about our instructions, I wanted them to be even easier to
use, so I revamped those too.  Once I added in a lot of the
inspiring photos you’ve been sending us of your own homemade waterers,
the resulting file was 23 pages long!  I figured a lot of people
would enjoy the extra information, but others would find it
daunting.  To keep everyone happy, I also summarized all of the
most important construction information into a one page, quick
instruction sheet that we include with our homemade chicken
waterer kits.



I hope our new customers
enjoy the extra information and even simpler construction!