My Review Of The Chicken Fountain (It Leaks Like Crazy!)

[Chris]

I know this is a Jeep Wrangler TJ forum but I like sharing my thoughts and opinions on products I buy since this is the internet and people are always searching for real world feedback (lots of fake, paid reviews out there these days).

My review is for The Chicken Fountain.

I was looking for a solution that would allow me to bring fresh water into our chicken coop so that I wouldn't have to be constantly filling their waterers (which is annoying and cumbersome). I decided that after all the waterers I tried (most of which are junk) this one seemed like the best idea since it would provide clean water (chickens love to get everything dirty), it would autofill with the float, and I could run a heated hose from out outdoor spigot into the coop, then mount this thing on the wall and add a little fish tank style water heater into the main tube.

All I can say is that after a month or so of using it I am very disappointed. The vertical nipples are a terrible idea. Even with their winterizing kit (copper nipples for heat conductivity) and a submersible fisk tank water heater inside of it, the nipples leak constantly. So much so that I've got massive puddles of water all over the floor of my coop. We aren't talking a few drips here and there, we're talking massive puddles.

I was trying to come up with a solution for the leaking and so I decided to ask ChatGPT. According to ChatGPT vertical nipples are always a terrible idea in poultry waterers and should always be swapped out for horizontal nipples. It said that almost everyone who uses vertical nipples complains about constant leaking.

Needless to say I've tried everything but I'm just sick and tired of dealing with leaks. In theory this is a great idea but in the real world it's a real piece of crap and a big waste of money. I applaud them for their efforts but I would never, ever recommend this waterer to anyone unless it's being mounted outside and only used during the warmer months. Between the little debris (we use coffee grounds) that manage to make their way inside the system (don't ask me how, but chickens will get anything dirty, no matter what) that prevent the nipples from fully sealing and the vertical orientation of the nipples, it's just all around a bad design.

At this point I'm just going to toss it in the trash and go back to a regular waterer with a submersible heater in it. I should have known better to buy anything with those crappy little water nipples.

 

[John Cooper]

Chris is wondering if it is a water pressure problem?

Commercial chicken houses all use nipple drinkers.

Trash in the line?

When we had layer houses SeaBoard farms required the old Bell style drinkers, don't know if its due to the chickens being grown when they were placed in our houses or what.

I had 4 water filters to keep any Trash out of the lines.

 

[bucky]

Commercial operations have mesh floors caged or not and all the water and crap flows down into a pit under the building and is cleaned out sporadicly some time yearly. The big operations have 100K chickens in a building. They run cooling year round because 100K chickens provide a lot of heat.
Chris isn’t it your Kids job to water the animals? I know that was my job when I was young. I still remember trudging threw the snow every morning in the Winter with a pail of hot water.

 

[Chris]

Chris is wondering if it is a water pressure problem?

Commercial chicken houses all use nipple drinkers.

Trash in the line?

When we had layer houses SeaBoard farms required the old Bell style drinkers, don't know if its due to the chickens being grown when they were placed in our houses or what.

I had 4 water filters to keep any Trash out of the lines.

We use coffee grounds for the bedding and that stuff can work its way into just about anywhere. That could be part of the issue, yes.

Water pressure, I'm not sure. It's connected to a hose that connects to my outdoor spigot.

Commercial operations have mesh floors caged or not and all the water and crap flows down into a pit under the building and is cleaned out sporadicly some time yearly. The big operations have 100K chickens in a building. They run cooling year round because 100K chickens provide a lot of heat.
Chris isn’t it your Kids job to water the animals? I know that was my job when I was young. I still remember trudging threw the snow every morning in the Winter with a pail of hot water.

Yep, I've thought about turning the floor underneath the waterer into something like this. That would probably solve the issue and then I simply wouldn't care how much water was dripping. Maybe I'll go that route when summer comes.

As for the kids, I generally make them do a lot of it, but they're also at school most of the day so some of it I tend to when they're not home.

 

[John Cooper]

Commercial operations have mesh floors caged or not and all the water and crap flows down into a pit under the building and is cleaned out sporadicly some time yearly. The big operations have 100K chickens in a building. They run cooling year round because 100K chickens provide a lot of heat.
Chris isn’t it your Kids job to water the animals? I know that was my job when I was young. I still remember trudging threw the snow every morning in the Winter with a pail of hot water.

Maybe where you but not back east. Caged layers yes they live in cages their whole life.

Commercial breeder layers have an open house, nest the birds and get in and out of, with a belt that run in between to bring the eggs to the front of the house. There are slats the nest sit on and the water, and feed its delivered abive the slats and the middle of the house has shaving on the floor.

The rooster feeder runs down the middle of the house and is raised and lowered at feeding time.

The picture below is like the 2 Breeder layer houses we used to own. Our eggs went to the hatchery and the chick's went to the broiler houses.

 

[John Cooper]

The above houses are cleaned out once a year, then pressure washed disinfected and put back together for the next flock of birds. Most breeders have around 7-8000 hens and 7-800 roosters per house.

Edit: we owned a breeder layer farm for 10 years. I know a little about chickens

 

[jeepguy03]

Any waterers that have a hose connected seem to freeze or leak in my experience. I only have 20 chickens, but have gone back to just refilling two of the steel 5 gallon waterers once a week, that sit on those metal heating plates from tractor supply plugged in with extension cords. It's simple, not a ton of maintenance, and seems to work well even in fairly cold New England winters.

 

[MtPockets]

My wife has had (way too many) chickens forever.
This is what she has always used.
To help keep the water clean and also help keep the water from freezing in REALLY cold weather, we made covers for them so only a smallish opening exists for them to get to the water.
Mostly, we've given up on keeping the water clean and it doesnt seem to bother them.
The worst are the Sebastapol geese. You can put a nice clean 5 gallon bucket of water for them to drink out of, and even though it's too tall for them to get in for a swim, they'll still find a way to mess up the clean water.

https://shiptonsbigr.com/miller-mfg-5-qt-heated-pet-bowl

 

[Chris]

My wife has had (way too many) chickens forever.
This is what she has always used.
To help keep the water clean and also help keep the water from freezing in REALLY cold weather, we made covers for them so only a smallish opening exists for them to get to the water.
Mostly, we've given up on keeping the water clean and it doesnt seem to bother them.
The worst are the Sebastapol geese. You can put a nice clean 5 gallon bucket of water for them to drink out of, and even though it's too tall for them to get in for a swim, they'll still find a way to mess up the clean water.

https://shiptonsbigr.com/miller-mfg-5-qt-heated-pet-bowl

I’ve got one of these as well. They work nicely!

 

[JMT]

We had chickens for eight years. We ended up using 5 gallon buckets with lids and nipples in the bottom hung inside the coop. I think 3 nipples per bucket. We had one of those automatic doors on a timer so it would open in the morning and close at night. You still had to watch it due to power outages. Everything eats chicken.