Instructions For Your New Love My Hens Chicken Waterers

Congratulations on purchasing your Love My Hens Chicken Waterer!

An original design by Love My Barnyard

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This document includes information and instructions to help you and your chickens get set up for drinking.

1. Why did we design the Love My Hens Chicken Waterer the way we did?
2. How easy is it to set up your new cups or nipples on your waterer tote? Easy-peasy.
3. Where should you put your chicken waterers?
4. Training your chickens to drink:
1. How can you train your chickens to drink from cups?
2. How can you train your chickens to drink from horizontal nipples?

1. WHY DID WE DESIGN

THE LOVE MY HENS WATERER

THE WAY WE DID?

We are excited to offer a product to chickens and their people that makes life healthier, cleaner, and easier. Both you and your hens ‘are what you eat’, so here is what we worked into your waterer design:

• THE HEALTHIEST CHICKEN WATERER OF ALL! Safety is our priority. Unlike those PVC and ABS plastic drinkers that are dumping BPAs and Phthalates into your chicken water, the Love My Hens food grade stainless steel tote will always be toxin free.
• GENEROUS SIZED TOTE:3 Gallon (5 Liter) container with 3 drinker cups will comfortably suit 6 chickens for several days before refilling.
• NO MESS, NO STINK: You will love how easy it is to clean and refill the stainless tank even after a few days! Designed to rid your hen water of algae growth that plastic containers love to harbor.
• CUPS VS. NIPPLES: Drinker cups are an easy solution for those looking for a design that keeps the food and poop out but who are still leery of the nipple drinkers. The nipples take a bit more time working with your hens to catch on, but as long as you are relatively comfortable handling your birds, it can be done in a few days helping them out a couple of times per day.  Reasons for cups: easy learning, faster drinking & some believe they will drink more if given cups. Reasons for nipples: cleaner, less work for you, easier to set down and fill, and they are less likely to freeze. So which do we use here at Love My Barnyard? Both! Our chickens can all drink from both cups and nipples, but we always teach them to use the nipples first. Want to know a whole lot more about making this choice? Check out our blog entry on cups vs. nipples!
• EASY FILL WITH TIGHT FITTING LID: Wide-mouth lid makes this tote accessible to rinse and fill.
• COMFORTABLE TO CARRY & EASY TO HANG: Large handle makes toting water and hanging up a cinch!
• INTERCHANGEABLE DESIGN: The Love My Hens drinker is designed for easy swap-out of our drinker cups and our horizontal nipples at any time. So if you have a hankering to try out nipples or cups you can order them from us at lovemybarnyard.com. 
• INCLUDES THREE DRINKER CUPS OR HORIZONTAL NIPPLES PLUS ONE SPARE. Four in total.

 2. HOW EASY IS IT TO SET UP YOUR NEW CUPS OR NIPPLES

ON THE WATERER TOTE?

EASY-PEASY!

For compactness in shipping, and so you get to know your drinker better, we send you your waterer tote with the cups or nipples not inserted.

Here is what you do to install each of the three cups/nipples onto your waterer. Please, no worries, no tools or expertise needed for this!

1. Wash the waterer and all of the cups/nipple with dish soap and rinse well.
2. Unscrew the nut (same saddle nut on cups and on nipples). 
3. Remove one of the two white o-rings.
4. Insert the threaded end of the cup/nipple such that the one remaining o-ring is pressed against the outside of the waterer tote.
1. If using cups, twist the cup so that the rim of the cup is level.
2. If using horizontal nipples, then be sure to twist the nipple such that the longest plastic part of the sides around the rod is positioned at the bottom underneath the rod. See nipple picture above labeled with "bottom lip of nipple".
5. Take the o-ring that you had removed and put your hand into the waterer tote and slide it back over the threads so it is pressed against the inside of the waterer tote surface.
6. Thread the nut back on, and just tighten by hand. It is easiest if the nut is threaded so it curves away from the hole you just inserted the cup/nipple into. Note, if you are changing out a cup or a nipple that has been used before, or on a tote that has been used before, be sure to wipe the surface of the tote and the o-rings very well, as even the smallest of particles can interfere with the seal and cause leakage.
7. Do this for your three cups/nipples, and that’s it, you are ready to go! We gave you an extra cup or nipple, just cuz... Things get knocked, dropped, gunked up, or who knows what… and it’s always nice to have a backup!
8. Get to know your lid. The lids are made to be snug; you will find that it is easiest to remove from one orientation or another so play with it a little to find the sweet spot.

3. WHERE SHOULD YOU PUT YOUR CHICKEN WATERERS?

Give some thought to where you put your chicken waterers.

Factors to consider:

• The size of their outdoor area.
• The weather your hens are enduring.
• Ease of access for you.
• The size of your flock. 
• Positioning for chicken height as well as for easy cleaning and filling.

Put them where your chickens are... It is a great idea to have waterers in the areas your chickens most hang out. This usually means inside and outside, and if you have a large pasture, rather than just a run or backyard, then give them water on both ends. Drinking enough water is critical to your birds' health, so be sure they have quick access to water all the time.

A common rule of thumb is one cup or nipple for two to three birds. So you will probably find that a drinker with three cups/nipples will comfortably support six to nine chickens depending on the heat. If you are uncertain, a little observation goes a long way. What you are looking for is that there are not so many crowding around the drinker(s) that they are fighting/competing and/or uncomfortable getting in. Watch and see, and add in more water sources if needed.

Waterers with Cups: better lower than higher. The ideal height for a cup waterer is such that the rim of a cup is at the height of the back of your chickens. In the real world, chickens come in many sizes and they change sizes so you will need to put it low enough that everyone can drink. Some folks have multiple waterers at varying heights. Some use chick waters until they are big enough to reach. You might have noticed that chickens will often take a sip from a low down dish and then lift and tilt their heads to run the water down their throat. So if the cup is on the low side they can still do this, it just won't be as easy or as fast.

Waterers with Horizontal Nipples can be a little higher. The height for horizontal nipples can be at head height because there is more pecking action rather than beak dipping. 

Where to mount/hang/place your Love My Hens Waterer.

Okay, let's get them drinking!!!

Teaching your chickens to do something new can be challenging. Here are a few important tips to help your chickens quickly figure out your new waterer cup system.

Keep a close eye on your chickens while they are learning, you do not want them to become dehydrated. But that said, it helps motivate them if they are a bit thirsty.

Choose a day that is not overly hot to introduce a new waterer, or if not an option then visit them more frequently to speed up their training.

To speed up learning, we suggest you remove all other water sources while your chickens are getting familiar with their new system. 

Cleaner = Tastier = More Drinking! Because it is so much cleaner and tastier, you may find that once they are in the swing of things, your chickens drink more water.

1. Clean your new chicken waterer. Be sure to rinse everything well so no soapy residue is left behind.
2. Fill your waterer with fresh good quality water; we suggest you use the same quality water that you would like to drink yourself!
3. Hang up your waterer and put on the lid to keep debris out of the water.
4. Pre-fill all of the cups by pressing on the yellow flapper and bring your chickens over to drink. 
5. Typically, once chickens know the cups are where the water is, they will naturally peck at the yellow flapper to get more water.  However, if they have trouble figuring out to draw in more water they need to peck the flapper, then take a few of your hens and gently guide their heads to the flapper so they experience the water coming out, and repeat this a few times during the day. It really only takes one hen to know how to use a system and then all of the other chickens will follow.

4. HOW CAN YOU TRAIN YOUR CHICKENS

TO DRINK FROM HORIZONTAL NIPPLES?

 

If you just read the above instructions for teaching your chickens to use cups, you will see a fair amount of overlap here...

Keep a close eye on your chickens while they are learning, you do not want them to become dehydrated. But that said, it helps motivate them if they are a bit thirsty.

Choose a day that is not overly hot to introduce a new waterer, or if not an option then visit them more frequently to speed up their training.

To speed up learning, we suggest you remove all other water sources while your chickens are getting familiar with their new system. 

Take a look at this five minute video that shows some seven week old chicks being introduced for the first time to our nipple waterer.

 

Here are the steps:

1. Clean your new chicken waterer. Be sure to rinse everything well so no soapy residue is left behind.
2. Fill your waterer with fresh good quality water; we suggest you use the same quality water that you would like to drink yourself!
3. Hang up your waterer and put on the lid to keep debris out of the water. 
4. Take a few of your hens and gently guide their heads to peck at the nipple so the water drips out. Repeat this a few times with each chicken (if you don't have too many...). It really only takes one hen to know how to use a system and then all of the other chickens will follow, but we still suggest you teach as many of them as you are comfortable handling so as to accelerate the process for everyone. (We let our roosters figure it out from watching the hens.) While they are next to the waterer, keep pecking at the nipple with your finger so they see the water coming out. Repeat this step several more times during the day.
5. If you are still feeling concerned about their willingness to adapt to the nipples, then try propping a small pebble underneath the stainless nipple rod so that it stays in place and holds the nipple so that a very small amount of water drips out at a speed that is as slow as you can make it. If you are set up with the waterer inside the coop, you will want to put down some extra bedding to absorb the water. Important: you will need to be extra observant that you don't run out of water, as it is hard to gauge just how much you are losing while you have the pebble there. Once you see a few chickens successfully drinking from the nipple, then go ahead and remove the pebble.
6. Another strategy some folks like is to put something sticky and yummy like sweet jam on the end of the nipples to encourage pecking. But frankly we have never had to do this, as step 4 and sometimes step 5 seem to be enough. Chickens are smart!
7. Once your chickens are all comfortably using their new waterer, continue, as always, to note the quantity of water they are consuming to be sure they are drinking enough. 

 

Okay, that is it! Enjoy! We welcome feedback.

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Though we have been using our waterers for some years now for our own chickens, this is a new product -- just launched in May of 2019, and so we do anticipate that we will be making tweaks along the way to better and better your chickens' experience.

Please visit us at

 www.LoveMyBarnYard.com

For more information feel free to Contact Us Here by email or phone.