Nicolle's Originals: Plumbing the Chicken Coop Part 2: The Nipple Waterers and Bucket

Wednesday, October 2, 2013

Plumbing the Chicken Coop Part 2: The Nipple Waterers and Bucket

In Part 1, you learned all about the line we dug in and plumbed out to the coop.

Here is Part 2, where you will learn about the nipple watering system my husband put in for the hens.

It actually took my husband quite a bit of ingenuity to come up with this plan.

First we chose what the finished system would look like, now that the coop has running water (!!). We wanted an end of tubing to have nipple waterers on it and never need to refill the waterer again, and never have poop or mulch on their waterer again.

So we chose some poultry nipples, and they came. They were for 1/2" tubing, so we knew we would need a part to change the PVC from 3/4" to 1/2" and a length of the 1/2" tubing and an end cap. Also, the water pressure was high, so my husband went to Ace Hardware looking for a part to lower the water pressure.

He came home nearly two hours later with less than $30 in parts and excited about a grand plan. He needed the pressure to be less than 1 PSI, so he bought a bucket and a toilet valve, so it would automatically refill but not give the PVC constant pressure. He also got a bendy toilet pipe (sorry, that's not the right word) to go from the valve at the spigot to the bottom of the bucket.

Someone else also had to make holes in the bucket (as did his brother).

At home, my husband drilled two holes in the bucket. One for incoming water and one for outgoing. The bendy toilet pipe (wrong word again) he bought went into one hole and the PVC leading to the piece with the nipples on it went out the other.

He also fashioned a shelf in the coop from wood scraps so it would be higher than roosting height (so no poop -we hope!).