When I sent out an email reminding our past chicken waterer customers that our 2010 photo contest deadline is coming up on September 21, the entries came pouring in.  The photos were wonderful, but many of them also came with stories that I can't help sharing with you.  I'll be regaling you with customer images and tales over the next few weeks --- enjoy!

To get you started, here are a couple of the most beautiful photos we've received so far.  The top one is from Stuart Liptay, who wrote:

Meanwhile, Jennifer Wallace sent me several beautiful photos of her son's flock --- polish/americana, barred rock, buff orphingtons and banties.  I believe that both of the photos I loved so much are of the banties, although I'm not positive.
















Keep those images rolling in!

I posted about Diane Watson's homemade chick waterer earlier, but I thought you'd also like to see her setup for the adult poultry.  This is a very elegant solution for the farmer who really doesn't want to have to worry about her chickens' water on a daily basis (or her ducks' water, as the case may be.)

Diane built a tower to elevate a 55 gallon drum, into which she installed a 2-way valve.  She emailed:

The other image shows her ducklings, now six weeks old, drinking from one end of the waterer in the big picture.  She wrote: "The hanging chain can quickly be adjusted up as the ducklings grow bigger."

Diane is clearly a poultry lover, and also a great DIYer.  She finished her email with this note:

Diane is right --- I'm very impressed.  Thanks for sharing this great setup!

If anyone else wants to follow in Diane's footsteps, our 10 pack DIY chicken waterer kit is a great place to start.

I like the simplicity of many of our customers' chick brooder setups.  Clearly, our homemade chicken waterers fit into the systems easily, keeping the brooders dry while using up very little space.  Here's what Nicki from Wisconsin had to say about her homemade waterer (pictured above):

It took about five seconds for the chicks to figure out what they were doing with the nipple.  We tied the bottle to a chair leg and hung it over the box. We nearly had a stampede to get to it and play in the water!
 
We still have a water bottle waterer for the chicken walker/cage that we push around the yard for them.  We have a dog that "Plays" with them to death hence the need for the chicken walker.

Thanks so much for your great product!  Enjoy the pictures.

The image to the right shows Jamie David's half-grown chicks, upgraded to a bucket waterer.  Meanwhile, lest you think that only chickens can take to our waterer, two of our customers sent in photos of other types of poultry in action.  The image on the left below shows two day old ducklings and guinea keets drinking from Diane Watson's waterer.  She emailed that the waterer is made "using a 4" pvc pipe cap as the reservoir.  It holds a quart of water, easily refills from the top, and does not take up valuable brooder floor space."  On the right, you see Barbara's two week old chicks and guinea keets drinking from her own homemade chick waterer.

If you're looking for a quick, easy, and effective waterer for your brooder, the best way to start is with one of our DIY chicken waterer kits.

Hello Anna,

We LOVE IT!!!!

We have 13 girls and 2 tough boys! We did as you said and didn't leave water for them. We got our 5 gallon bucket and added the nipples and voila. It took one chicken who is our busy body, she kept looking and looking and then a peck and more and more! It was a total of 5 minutes before all were taking part. The boys were the last to subject themselves!!! Yeah, Thank you now we can go on vacation and not worry.

We are blessed, and will be praying that your business will be also!

Randy and Kelley and our 15 chickens!!

* * *

(Just a heads up...)

LOVE IT!  I have it setup in my brooder, I absolutely love it .... Works awesome!

Thank you!

--- Rob from Oregon

Ed from Texas emailed to let me know that he'd put together a video of his chickens drinking from his brand new bucket waterer.  He also mentioned that his birds had been a bit afraid of the waterer at first, even though he tempted them closer with cheerios, spinach, and finally a plate of water underneath.  He wrote:

Last year, we had several people return their waterers claiming that their chickens couldn't figure out how to drink.  This year, though, people seem to trust us more, and are willing to give the waterer a second shot even if their chickens are more recalcitrant than the average bird (who usually picks the new watering method up in less than an hour.)

Thanks for giving it another go, Ed!  Your chickens will thank you too --- but you have clearly figured that out already, since you already ordered another homemade chicken waterer kit.

I've had a lot of emails lately about keeping chicken waterers from freezing, so I thought I'd share some heated waterer information to help us all prepare for the cold months ahead.  First of all, if you haven't already, you should read my tips for winter care of your Avian Aqua Miser --- simply taking the waterer in at night when you collect the day's eggs then putting it back out with the morning feed is often feasible if you have a small flock.

But bucket waterers are too bulky for daily carrying.  Is there a better solution?  Our homemade chicken waterer customers are ingenious, so I wasn't surprised to find several tips in my inbox:

• Build your own heated bucket waterer --- This old blog post gives instructions for using a light bulb to turn your bucket waterer into a heated waterer.
• Keep the coop above freezing --- If you have several chickens in a relatively small coop, you may need no more than a light bulb burning at night to keep the air temperature above freezing.  The light will have the bonus effect of increasing egg production during the winter months.
• Add a stock tank deicer to your bucket waterer --- Barbara emailed to give me some facts on her experience with using a Model H-49 Submergible Bucket De-Icer from Farm Innovators.  She says, "I paid $49.69 for it.  A bit pricey but well worth it!  The only issue I have had was the metal coil around the power cord rusting in the water.  It is to prevent animals chewing the power cord.  Not a problem with the guinea fowl so I just removed it."

The photo in this post, by the way, came with Barbara's email about her deicer.  She noted:

I received 25 chicks on Tuesday.  I had a water bottle hanging in the brooder for them.  I let them settle for a while, then reached in and began to tap the Aqua Miser waterer.  Several of the chicks went to it and tried.  Most ignored it.  I went outside to finish the work I was doing there.  A hour or so later, I went back in and heard the strangest sound coming from the brooder.  I quietly crept over and peeped in.  The chicks were gathered in a circle around the waterer and taking turns pecking it to get water. It was almost like a machine gun they were doing it so quickly. I have not had to worry about water.

I used the waterer with one little lone chick before the others arrived.  It took it a couple of days to do for itself.  I trained it by taking a Coke bottle top and using it to tap the waterer enough for it to get a drink from the top. By the second day it still took one drink, but without enthusiasm. The third day, it ignored the bottle top completely. This thing really works!

I have discovered a couple of things that you might want to post on your web site. 

• If you leave the water in the container too long it will get algae in it and that will stop up the waterer. Fresh water needs to be added/changed often enough to keep that from happening.  How often will depend on the weather, including humidity, and the water. 
• I was wanting to use something smaller than a 5-gallon bucket, but larger than the one gallon plastic bottle I was using.  I was in Lowes the other day, and as I was standing in line to check out, I noticed the water cooler water bottles stacked in a rack by the front door.  I went over to look and discovered that there was a 3 1/2 gallon bottle for $5-$6.  I bought it, took it home and put two waterers in the bottom.  I used a coat hanger to put through the holes I drilled to hang it by. A hint for this kind of bottle:  The type of water cooler the bottle is designed for, has a small post in the center.  The paper seal is peeled off the bottle top and when the bottle is turned over on to the water cooler, the little post in the cooler punches the center of the plastic cover back up into the bottle where it stays until it is taken for a refill.  The plug has an edge around it it keep it from coming out, however, I used a small pocket screwdriver and pried one edge in enough to get hold of it with a pair of needle nose pliers.  I was able to put the plug out.  I now use it to cover the hole. The lip keeps it in place.  The worst part of using this bottle is that a funnel has to be used to replenish the water. To me, having a clear plastic water bottle so I can see how much is in it and how it looks is worth using the funnel.

Thought you like to hear this.

Walt       (AKA Santa)
Troy, TN

P.S. I like them so much, I just ordered three more waterers.

Jamie from Alaska sent me a photo of his new bucket waterer in action.  He wrote:

Meanwhile, Louisa pulled out a stopwatch, then emailed to say:

David wrote in too:

Thanks for reporting in, everybody!  If you haven't taken the plunge yet, our homemade chicken waterer kits are extremely affordable, and --- as David says --- your chickens will love them even more than you do.

In the past, I've used pre-made Avian Aqua Misers for all of our chickens.  The small size is very handy in our equally small tractors, adding so little weight that they don't impact my ability to pull the tractors to a new patch of ground.

But with 17 cockerels left, plus our growing chick and its Mama hen, watering the forest pasture was becoming a chore.  When we decided to go out of town for a long weekend, I begged Mark to make me a bucket waterer to hydrate the flock.

I was surprised to discover that our chickens adored their new bucket waterer and started ignoring the smaller waterers.  My best guess is that the large mass of water in the five gallon bucket stays much cooler, which is quite a treat given recent hot temperatures.  The experience has solidified my belief that bucket waterers are the way to go in large coop and run situations where weight isn't an issue.

It's time to pull out those cameras and turn into a wildlife photographer!  Submit your photos for a chance to win a 10 pack DIY chicken waterer kit.  This kit is my favorite size since it allows you to create four bucket waterers, enough to keep most flocks hydrated during a long weekend trip out of town.

Deadline: September 21, 2010

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.  If you win, we'll email you back to ask for your mailing address.

What we're looking for: We'll judge the photos based on artistic merit, how cute we think your birds are, and how interesting your setup is.  Did you find a unique way to hang your waterer, or did you put together your DIY kit in a special way?  Did you train your peacocks or rabbits to drink out of your waterers along with your hens?  You don't need to have bought an Avian Aqua Miser to enter --- we're also interested in photos of other homemade, gravity-feed, nipple-based watering systems.  The photos on this post were last year's winners, if that helps you figure out what we're looking for.

Prizes: One grand prize winner will receive a 10 pack DIY chicken waterer kit, along with the bonus ebooks and video.  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.  Our chickens are cute, but we'd really like to see other people's poultry in action, and to see how our diy kits morph in other people's hands.

Greg Whitmore from The Round Rock Funny Farm turned one of our homemade chicken waterer kits into an elegant, self-filling bucket waterer.  I've included one of his photos here, but you should definitely go check out his blog post, which lists the specific hardware he used to create his waterer.

Meanwhile, we got this cheerful email from another customer:

Thanks for your kind words, April, and for your ingenuity, Greg!  You both made our day!

Over 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.

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!

We love seeing photos of our homemade chicken waterers in action, so I was thrilled when I got an email from Stephen Brown.  He wrote:

His email is a timely reminder that our 2010 chicken waterer contest will indeed be coming up in just a few months.  Now's a great time to get out your cameras and send in submissions while you're thinking about it.  The rules will be similar to those from our 2009 chicken photo contest --- I'll post some real rules in a few weeks.  Meanwhile, if you haven't already, check out the winners from last year and get those creative juices flowing!

I commented to Erich that I was impressed by the beauty of his tractor, and he explained that he makes a few tractors to sell to new backyard chicken keepers.  Mark has tossed around a similar idea, but our plate is always too full to give it a shot.  If any of you are looking for a source of extra cash, you could do worse than building some upscale chicken tractors and selling them on craigslist or through the local classified ads.

"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."

You have another happy customer here!  I just started raising chickens last November and fortunately I found out about your product before I had my first chicks.  I knew a good product when I saw it and never had to deal with filthy water.  I am also glad to be helping out creative, hard-working entrepreneurs like you. 











I used my 3-pack DIY kit to make one coop waterer and one 5 gallon bucket waterer for the yard, since my flock free-ranges during the day.  I don't have to teach the chickens what to do.  One figures it out and the rest copy her.










The coop waterer is made of a one gallon bottled water jug.  I painted it blue to keep out the sun, leaving a clear level-viewing strip.  I floated an orange nerf ball inside to make it easier to see the water level.

The bucket waterer is made from an old pool chlorine bucket.  It has two nipples and is painted for aesthetics.  I bought a plant bracket and used sturdy bolts to mount it on a 2x2 post.  Now I don't have to worry about their water supply in the hot desert summers.

Thanks for a great product!

Jon Miller sent me photos a few months ago of his homemade chicken waterer that uses a toilet float to stay full, and then followup photos of the homemade chicken waterer in action.  He decided to hatch some chicks this spring, and sent me an email with photos of his chick waterer:

Thanks for sharing, Jon!  I love seeing our homemade chicken waterer making your poultry-keeping easier and cleaner.

Drew emailed me to let me know that he'd put some photos of his version of our homemade chicken waterer up on his website.  I like his elegant use of aquarium-type tubing, and his description of why he wanted to switch over to the Avian Aqua Miser:

Thanks for sharing, Drew!  I also loved the description of your farm, which sounds a lot like ours.

Last fall, Titus Blackwood emailed me to ask if our Avian Aqua Miser will work with day old chicks.  "Well, I'm not sure," I replied.  "But if you give it a shot, can you take some photos and let me know?"

It turns out that our automatic chicken waterers not only work with day old chicks, they are vastly preferable to old-fashioned waterers.  Titus raised over 150 laying hens on the Avian Aqua Miser, and reports that she ended up with healthier birds than ever before.  She was so pleased with the results that she changed all of her birds over to nipple-based waterers.

"It's easier to teach a day old chick than an older bird," Titus reports.  "And we've had significantly fewer pecking problems since using the Avian Aqua Miser."

Many thanks to Kristin Mahony from Ranch Alacrity and co-owner of Rocky Mountain Reindeer for taking the photos.  And of course, a big thank you to Titus who has since become an online buddy!

Remember Jon Miller's chicken waterer setup that uses a toilet float to stay full?  Jon sent me some lovely followup photos of his homemade waterer in action. 

This lady seems to be having a few issues figuring out how to drink, but she clearly got it eventually, as you can see in the photo below:

Thanks for sharing, Jon!  You've got some lovely, happy hens!

Interested in making your own innovative chicken waterer?  Check out our diy chicken waterer kits starting from $15.

Congratulations to Ross Johnston, the winner of our Groundhog's Day chicken waterer giveaway!  His chicken bucket waterer is simple and seems to be working perfectly in his homemade coop.





Thanks you to everyone who entered our contest!  I've got some more photos that I'll be posting over the next week or two, and I'd love to see your photos even though the contest is over.  Just email them to at anna@kitenet.net.  Happy spring!

We've been getting a lot of great photos and feedback from past customers about our automatic chicken waterers.  The photos shown here are by Octavius Baker, who says:

I'm looking forward to seeing more photos, Octavius!  Meanwhile, Titus wrote in to say:

We'd noticed the same thing, Titus!  In fact, we now include the Avian Aqua Miser in our list of tips to prevent chicken pecking.

We also got a sweet note from Sara in Oakland who said:

Thank you all for the kind words and great photos!  They brighten a cold winter day.

We know that budgets are tight, but everyone deserves a bit of a treat as we slowly work our way towards spring.  So we're holding another chicken waterer giveaway!

When: Email us by Groundhog's Day (February 2, 2010) to enter.

How: Send us one (or two, or three, or ten!) digital photos of your Avian Aqua Misers in action.

What: One randomly selected person will win a 5 pack DIY kit.

We've really enjoyed seeing the ingenuity with which many of you put your DIY kits together --- keep those great ideas flowing!

We'll return to our regularly scheduled chicken tractor construction info later in the week, but I got an email from a customer that I wanted to share.  Jon Miller contacted me a few weeks ago to ask if he could put our chicken nipples directly into a water hose and leave it turned on so that he'd never have to refill his chickens' water.  I told him that our nipples are meant to be used on gravity pressure only, but Jon wasn't deterred.  He emailed me again last weekend to say:

Thanks for sharing, Jon!  I love your solution, and I'm sure your chickens do too.

Thanks for the kind words, Barbara!  We're always thrilled to hear that the Avian Aqua Miser works on birds other than chickens.  (So far, we've heard good things about using them with turkeys as well.)  And it always makes my day to hear that our automatic chicken waterer makes other people's lives as easy as it has made mine.

Marvin Bartel wrote in this week to share his ingenious solution to the problem of frozen chicken waterers.  His description and photos were so great, I've reproduced the entire email here with just a few modifications:

Here in Northern Indiana it gets cold. I have a three hens  in a small insulated shed.  They use one of your drinkers.  So far this year it has been down to  7 degrees F outside and down to 15 F in the shed.

Being a potter and expecting cold weather, I made a stoneware pot shown here under the drinker bucket.  It contains a 25 watt lightbulb controlled by a thermostat.  The water bucket has  wire and spring to secure it so it cannot fall off.

The yellow plug thermostat is designed to turn on heat tape to keep pipes from freezing.  It is permanently set to switch on at 38 and off at 50.  Search for: Easy Heat #EH-38 Auto Thermostat.  Amazon has them at $12.88 + shipping.

This is the base with the stoneware cover removed.  Inside the closed container it reached 50 degrees too soon and turned the bulb off before it produced enough heat  to keep the drinker from freezing.  By adding an inch of insulation between the bulb and the thermostat, the bulb stays on long enough to keep the drinker from freezing (thus far). The insulation is alumina-silica fiber insulation used in pottery kilns and space shuttles. Other fireproof insulation would probably work. The bulb uses a standard porcelain fixture.

The closed warmer without the water container on top of it.  Any potter can make these.  A tinsmith could also make it from sheet metal.

The drinker is mounted with a rubber o-ring seal. Inside the water pail it has a brass nut (sold to fit the little pipe under a lamp sockets).

We're always thrilled to see unique homemade chicken waterers like this one.  Marvin's base is very elegant because he's a potter, but I suspect less crafty folks could make something equally utilitarian with even less effort.  Or contact Marvin and commission him to make you a unique art base!

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!

I always enjoy getting photos from our customers, especially the ones who use some ingenuity when putting together their homemade chicken waterers.  Ruth H. emailed me a couple of weeks ago with her method of keeping her bucket waterer poop-free without making it hard to fill:

I know from experience that the plastic lids they make for five gallon buckets can be a serious pain to take off and put back on, so I think Ruth's use of plumbing pieces has real potential.  Thanks for sharing, Ruth!

Bucket waterers are very popular for chicken keepers with more than a dozen birds.  When you buy one of our diy chicken waterer kits, it's simple and cheap to install chicken nipples in the bottom of a scavenged (or bought) five gallon bucket.

But how do you support a heavy bucket of water on the side of your coop?  Mark made a cheap and easy bucket waterer support out of a two by two, some screws, and a couple of shelf brackets.  The finished support now graces the walls of my father's chicken coop in South Carolina.  Thanks for being our guinea pig, Daddy!

Alexandra Kent had an equally clever solution in her winning photo from our 2009 photo contest.

Congratulations to our photo contest winners! Our grand prize winner's photo was not only well designed, it also showcased a unique way to hang a bucket waterer that we'd never thought of. Alexandra will receive three free automatic chicken waterers for her talented photo.

Didn't have time to take award-winning photos in time for this year's contest? Don't despair, we'll run another photo contest in fall 2010. Subscribe to our blog for up to date information.





Runner up: