Raising Chickens/Watering
 (Discussion) |
Starting Up:
Building a shelter |
Building a pen
Choosing a breed |
Pen Maintenance
Finding a Hatchery |
Local Regulations
Taking care of your Chickens:
Chicks |
Feeding |
Watering |
Winters
Dealing with death |
Butchering Chickens
Keeping your chickens happy
Other:
Watering chickens is not a hard thing to do. It is said that 20 chickens drink about as much as a cow. Since chickens are small creatures you don't need a lot of water to keep them going. However, you do need to give them water several times a day when it is hot. Since watering chicks is covered in the chicks section this section will cover adult chickens.
To hold the chickens water there are a variety of devices you can use. Anything that can hold water will do. Halves of tires, tip-over pails, tubs, etc. A limiting factor is that it needs to be small enough for chickens to drink out of. A tip-over pail is a small pail that you fill with water. When you take it into your pen you tip it over and the chickens drink out of that.
For other devices all you have to do is fill them with water. Every once in a while you should dump out the water (if it is dirty) and rinse and refill. Chickens will often walk in their water and also kick stuff into it. So to keep your chickens healthy it is a good idea to keep their water clean.
For a small collection of chickens, a dog bowl can work nicely — and it is easy to clean. You can also buy electric dog bowls for the winter, which some of the contributors to this book have had a lot of success with.