We’ve used a lot of poultry watering solutions on the homestead since we started keeping chickens back in 2012 or so. We’ve used bowls, buckets, poultry fountains, nipples, and cups, and they’ve all worked to varying degrees of success. This year though, we seem to have hit the jackpot when it comes to a watering solution for a lot of birds who seem bent on killing themselves in one way or another.
This is our first year raising guineas and turkeys. I’d heard stories about guinea keets being fragile and turkey poults trying to kill themselves, but I thought I could stay ahead of their suicidal tendencies.
We started with some guinea keets and some chickens in the brooder. The idea was to have some birds around that could teach the poults how to live. We started with your standard poultry fountain waterer, and that seemed to work well. When we added the turkey poults to the brooder though, disaster was unleashed! Within hours of those birds going into the brooder, we found ourselves drying birds who were trying to swim in the waterer. Clearly, that wasn’t going to work for their long-term survival.
We had some pea gravel on hand, so we added that to the waterer and that solved our problem temporarily, but then I got to thinking. How on Earth were we going to change out the water with all that gravel in there?
Fortunately, the small birds didn’t empty the waterer that first day, so I sent Fred to our local Rural King to grab some K&H Chick Saver Blocks and the waterer with which they were meant to be used. I figured the chick saver blocks were going to make our life much easier, but I didn’t realize how awesome the waterer was too!
It was the chick saver blocks that drew me to the waterer in the first place. They’re specially cut foam pieces that fit in the waterer so baby birds can’t try to go swimming in the waterer. They serve the same purpose as the gravel, but my thinking was that they’d be a lot easier to remove. Little did I know until Fred came home with the waterer though how easy it would truly be.
My favorite feature of the K&H poultry waterer is the removable ring that makes cleaning a breeze! The waterer features a ring that sits in the water trough. If the messy little babies get bedding in the waterer, you simply lift the ring out of the trough, discard the bedding, and replace the ring. You don’t have to try and scoop nasty bedding and poo out of the waterer, or even worse, you don’t have to waste water by dumping the entire contents so you can clean it.
Another feature that I love is the removable water tank. The 2.5-gallon tank works like those bottles that folks use with water coolers. It has a cap on the bottom that is water tight until you install the tank on the base. It also means that minimal water is lost if you’re removing the tank for some reason while there’s water still inside it.
Even better, the top is designed with what they call a “no roost” top, and it appears to be working because there are no signs of either the chickens or the guineas roosting on it.
I haven’t dreaded dealing with watering chores, and what’s more, I’m looking forward to winter because K&H also makes a heated model — the K&H Thermo-Poultry Waterer.
There are a couple downsides worth mentioning. I will likely have to get more waterers as the turkeys get bigger to ensure that the birds have sufficient water. Also, this product works amazingly well in our homemade brooder, but it definitely takes up more space than most chick waterers. I’m fine with that considering the heartache it saved me when the turkeys were trying to drown themselves, but it might be an issue for some folks.
Overall though, we’re extremely happy with our purchase and I look forward to using more of these around the homestead.