winter water

In the summer time, when we are running 20-30 pens of poultry that are moved daily, we use the bell drinkers. It is a system of bucket, tubing and water trough that refills as the poultry drink. Except when things clog the tube or there is too much algae in the bucket. It works reasonably well when we have many pens to move and lots to do in the summer.

In the winter time, these drinkers are dismantled and put into storage. Cleaned out, and then cleaned out again in the spring when they go back into use.

And the older, simpler way of watering the poultry commences. As autumn moves along we have fewer and fewer birds: until after Thanksgiving, when all we have are the egg layers to care for. At the same time the temperatures move lower every day, rendering the bell drinkers useless.

Back to low tech methods of watering birds. A short sided tray that can be used all winter (the frozen ice can easily be knocked out of it in the morning) placed outside the pen is filled with hand carried water. Right now we can still use the hoses, but those days are coming to an end. The tray is outside so the farmer does not have to roll over the thing, pull it out of a pen of birds, and so the birds can't...uh...use it as a toilet...