This video demonstrates how to create a fully automatic chicken waterer for your flock. The bucket is filled with water and placed in a ground feeder or oil pan. The water line should stop filling once the bucket’s holes are filled. The bucket will automatically fill when your flock drinks down the water. The video also discusses the importance of a timer and the need for the chicken to peck for the water to come out.
The Premier Automatic Waterer for Chickens is an automatic watering trough that attaches to a hose, which in turn is attached to a regular hose pipe, providing continuous water. This DIY water catchment system is ideal for egg-laying chickens and can be made for less than $2. The waterer’s delivery method is crucial, and the cost is low.
Another option for ducks is to drill holes in the bottom of the bucket and install a simple water catchment system. This method can help prevent dirty water from entering the watering can, making it a cost-effective and hands-free solution for your flock.
📹 The Last AUTOMATIC CHICKEN WATERER You Will Ever Make!
We have been using the same style of automatic chicken waterer for over 5 years on our homestead. This week one of them broke …
📹 Easy, Clean, and Automatic Water for Your Chickens
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For our brutal (kinda) NY winters I use a 5gal bucket cut the bottom off (about 6-8inches ) and flip it over in the top, the pieces fit tight.. then I put a refrigerator bulb (small incandescent bulb 40w works down to -10f under it. It keeps water from freezing. And is a cool night light..😂😁 I should have said to flip bucket over so top is on the ground and put bottom of bucket into it.. gives you a 6-8in space under for light.. works great
Great article. Been perusal your articles for a months. Y’all have really motivated me and my wife to start homesteading now even though we live in the city and live more sustainably, paying off debt and eventually saying goodbye to our corporate jobs and materialistic lifestyle. We just got our first 6 chickens last week and I’ll be making our raised garden beds in a week or 2.
I use a similar float valve for filling the water bucket . But I am concerned about mosquitos getting into the water. So I use the horizontal water nipples. That way the water bucket is sealed. My water source is different though. I have contaminated well water. So, I use a 55 gal drum which is filled with rain water from the roof of the chicken coop. The water flows from the drum in a similar manner. I have two water buckets, one inside of the coop and one outside. Both filled from the 55 gallon drum. Since the drum is refilled every time it rains and the chickens so far have never been able to empty the 55 gallon drum since they always have 65 gallons of water available. It is completely automatic. I do not have to do anything. I do check every now and then to see that water is indeed in the 5 gallon buckets. But I only do that when I happen to be in that area. I love automation.
Ive raised ducks before and they were so high maintenance when it came to water. Of course i had 26 of them so fewer would be better. BUT! I think if you can keep the bucket from turning over it would keep them from bathing, dirtying and splashing out all the water. Main thing is they NEED to drink. They dont always NEED to bathe.
If you have city water algae usually won’t grow. In winter I use a 55 gallon plastic drum with chicken nipples on the bottom. I have a heat tape tied to a pc of insulated electrical wire to form a circle. It lays inside the drum right over the nipples so they won’t freeze. In the center I have a birdbath heater tied to a brick to help keep it warm. I fill the drum about 1/3 of the way. Works well.
Kevin seen lot of watering systems, this looks like the BEST one yet! I hang my pails due to living on a hillside, when you put it on blocks in the end,that answered my question about hanging one. Still believe your system would work very well in our Application. Gonna check your description box for Amazon links due to the fact in this area never seen those fittings. Kevin my 🎩 off to you Sir. Great article & explanation !!! 👍👌✌️
We use a toilet fill valve to fill the bucket. it has a float valve and it’s easy to get. after perusal more, the toilet fill valve won’t work for that design. You’d have to change the arrangement completely. We have the bucket gravity feed to a line that has nipples. I do like how simple your bucket waterer design is. looks great!
Hi Kevin… been following for a couple years & this just came up on my watch list. I’m planning on building a coop/run this year after it cools off.. 112* & struggling to keep my garden going. Live in the high desert of Northern Nevada & trying to learn what I can til next year. Exemplary explanation of how to do this w/o a lot of side talk 😉 Have a great day 🐓👩🌾
Once in a while I get a chicken with severe beek out of alignment. The poor chicken can not pickup food because the beek doesen’t line uo with upper and lower beek. What I did was bench grinder the beeks till it looks close to right. She bled a little but instantly was picking up every grain! Poor thing was so hungry. But now she can eat just fine!
I really enjoy your articles. I have noticed that since leaving Arizona for the new homestead you have really expanded your projects to include garden, chickens, pigs, goats and rabbits. I know that farming is very labor intensive from my past (I’m in my 70s now and retired) and I was wondering if you have a “formula” or plan that you use to guide you in what you can do and what you can not do and just how involved you will be able to get with each one?
those plastic buckets are getting thinner each day. one of the heaviest plastics I have found is those that contain those 3″ chlorine tablets used by pool owners. If you don’t have a pool find someone who does and used the chlorine tablets and get these heavy duty buckets. they are usually a little taller too.
The last chicken waterer you will ever use is the plastic nipples, water comes out only when the hens peck at it making it the ultimate practical and aesthetic solution that lasts for years, I used the traditional bucket watering for years, algae buildup was a real problem including dirt buildup from the chickens. This basically eliminates all of these problems and makes it maintenance free.
If the hole for the float valve is slightly above your future water line, why would you have it so low? It both minimizes the amount of water that will be in the bucket, it makes very close to where the chicken water tubes can interfere with the float valve. Why not at least 1″ higher, or between that first and second bucket groove?
Just found your website and subscribed. Me and my family are moving from El mirage AZ just outside of Phoenix to the ava and good hope area of Missouri. We are leaving the 16th and should be there by the 18th. I hope to meet up with some of the homesteaders out there. I need all the help I can get lol. Love the website and have been binge perusal lol.
We built the bucket water system but we are finding that each day there is considerable dirt inside the bucket so we have to dump 3 gallons of water every day, wash it out, and refill with water. We had planned on hooking this up to our reverse osmosis but because of the amount of daily maintenance it doesn’t make sense. We are wondering if we use a poultry drinking cups instead of the chickens putting their heads of the water would work. The poultry drinking cups say they are for gravity fed systems only but I’m wondering if it will work with the swamp pump floats to control the water?
How do you keep the chickens from sitting on the lid? update: I ordered a swamp cooler float valve from Lowe’s. I live in Florida so finding one local is not possible. I made the set-up and put it in the chicken yard. The girls are using it just fine. I worry about the rooster getting his head stuck. I will watch him to make sure he is OK. I like the design. They were using an open hog feeder pan with a float valve in it, but they wanted to stand in it. messy, messy.
you didnt show the 35 gallon can set up, what it is sitting on, in fact your tube is only 7 feett long and didnt see it in the near by back ground, i have under ground water and hydro lines going to every part of my farm including the fields for the live stock with all auto waters set up as well as tank heater to keep the tank from freezing at -40F, that was all done some 38 years ago after i have all my land cut and stumped using a D8 dozer i did leave many areas with bush that was just thinned out and i planted 10,000 tree seedlings, all for shade for the live stock and piggies to play, then put the lines in 5 feet deep and dragged the whole area and seeded with 30% anual rye and feed grass’s, and built a 18″ round x 10 foot wide pipe roller i fill with water and pulled with my tractor that my ex wife sold on me when she came some 20 years later,, i been renting that roller out ever since i built it to other clearing land, it all slowly coming in my articles.. The annual rye comes up in a week and is 3 feet high in 3 to 4 weeks shading the ground and keeping it wet so the slow growing grass seed can grow good, the rye has large mass roots to hold the soil from washing.. The next year the rye dont grow back but there roots and rye grass roots into the soil to improve it and by then the grass and alfalfa are going strong, i broke my back up really bad and my body many years ago so carrying water was not something in my books i was willing to do, after all black poly or pex pipe is very cheap and farm-x 14/2 under ground wire is also expensiveness, you dont need heavy power wire even tho you make long runs as the line lose dont mater for tank warmers and heat lamps, i also installed remote land mines close to the bush edges so when i see a predator coming out i push the remote button for the closed land mine, all controlled by my IP security cameras that have trigger out ports and run on wi-fi, battery and very small solar panal at each one.
I built mine with a seven gallon bucket and three water nipples. For nearly thirty chickens we just top it off a couple times a week. (We didn’t want to keep a hose hooked up to it. ) Clean water and very low cost and maintenance. We also use a small aquarium heater (I recommend making sure you buy one with auto shutoff if it runs out of water) in the colder weather in Washington State with no problems. It rarely needs cleaning. It has worked great for us. We also fill a couple two gallon buckets on the ground for them as a treat- they do love drinking out of the water directly- but the automatic bucket is always there so we’re sure they always have clean water available. With automatic feeders we can lleave them for several days with no worries.
We have a Chicken Guard automatic coop door. I know you prefer to buy within the USA, so please note this comes from Europe. It’s handcrafted by a small business. The price with shipping was comparable to other products. What sold us was the unit. It has a timer to open and close the door, a sensor to open and close based on light and an option to use both the sensor and the timer together. It is battery operated (4 AA) and we change the batteries twice a year, when we change them in our smoke detectors. We ran into an issue with it rubbing this year, but they said to run sandpaper in the grooves of the wooden tracks, which fixed it perfectly. It’s been amazing to have, because I love sleeping in! Haha! There’s a YouTube article on it. Check it out and compare to other products.
Hi I have something very similar but without the hose and float system. Only thing I notice is that the white bucket allows light to penetrate so you do get an algae buildup over time on the inside of the bucket So I clean it every few weeks Thought about painting the outside black to stop that from happening Dave from New Zealand
I have used a 5 gallon bucket with chicken nipples for watering. It works great but I may have to add the hose connection instead of filling once a week. I live in NC so it’s not as cold in the winter. An aquarium heater works great until the temperature drops into the teens. Then icicles form from the nipples and the chickens can’t get any water. The water in the bucket stays warm. Just something to watch out for. Thanks for your articles.
G’day mate. Looking ahead to fix myself up wth chickens. Looking around your website for ideas. Thanks so much for your great articles. One question i have. With having well water with no softeners. How do these type of nipples handle the build up. I know our gravety fed dog water bowl needs cleaning out each and evertime we need to fill.
The problem with plastic bucket is over time the plastic will crack and break under the pressure of hanging. I know cause this is what we did and for a year was great, but then the heat and the cold weakened it to the point of breaking. I guess you could spend 25.00 a year on these, and not have to build anything, that’s not too bad.