Brooder Water Problems

These are my pullets (one may actually be a rooster, but only time will really tell).

They are 5-weeks old and still living in their brooder box.

Lately I have been having problems with my these little girls either spilling their drinking water or completely filling the bowl with pine shavings from their brooder box.  I had to come up with a solution.

On the way home from work I stopped by the feed store and bought some poultry nipples.

These are poultry nipples, or sometimes called chicken nipples (get your mind out of the gutter)

For those of you who don't know what a chicken nipple is, you can attach these to the bottom of a bucket of water or to a PVC pipe hooked to a water source and the chickens can get water by simply pecking at the shiny metal tab.  Kind of like a hamster water bottle

Anyway, I drilled a hole into the cap of a large water bottle and attached one of these nipples.

  Then, using my pocket knife, I punched a tiny hole in the bottom of the water bottle so that the water wouldn't become vapor locked in the bottle.

Next I had to figure out a way to hand a large water bottle from the inside of the cardboard box that I am currently using as a brooder.

I found a little nylon net bag in my shop that wasn't being used.

I put the water bottle in the net bag

.  Then I found a piece of scrap pine 2x2 lumber that I had laying around.

I attached a couple of cup hooks that I had left over from hanging coffee mugs under one of our kitchen cupboards.

Then I laid the scrap wood across the top of the brooder box, and hung the net bag with the water bottle inside, from the hooks.

Viola!  Instant temporary no-spill watering system.

My birds will only be in the brooder box for another couple of days before I move them out to their new chicken coop.  Until then, this water source will be fine.  All I had to do to train them to use it was take the friendliest of the four birds and touch her little beak to the nozzle so that she could see it held water.  After that, she taught the other 3 what it was without me having to lift a finger.

Anyway, I made this blog entry to hopefully help out any other new chicken enthusiasts who might be having the same problem with their chicks making a mess of their water source.

I hope this helps :)