Making a chicken waterer out of a hot water heater

Automatic chicken waterer using a hot water heater.


Jack F. emailed me a photo of his unique homemade chicken
waterer
setup.  He had an old hot water heater — no longer
functional as a heater, but with a large storage capacity.  Jack
emailed me to ask if I thought he could install the nipples directly
into the base of hot water tank.

Unfortunately, chicken nipples are meant to be installed in relatively
thin-walled containers, so that idea didn’t float.  But Jack
didn’t give up.  Instead, he sent a hose out of the hot water tank
and then attached that to a length of pvc pipe.  The nipples were
easy to install in the pipe, allowing Jack to space them out to give
all of his chickens a safe place to drink.

Here’s the really cool part — Jack added another thin hose running
vertically out of the main pipe.  He added a few drops of red food
coloring to the water in the tank, and now the vertical hose is a quick
and easy way to tell how much water is in the tank.  As the
red-colored water drops in the vertical hose, he knows it’s dropping
similarly in the tank.  Great idea!  Thanks for sharing!

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