Article reprinted with permission from Poultry Health Today.
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By Tom Tabler, PhD
Extension Professor
Mississippi State University Extension Service, Poultry Science Department
Mississippi State, MS
Raising commercial chickens successfully requires an adequate water supply. This means enough water pressure and volume to meet flock demands.
However, on many farms I visit, growers don&#;t always understand the difference between pressure and volume or the important roles they play in meeting this objective.
Water pressure and volume are both critical to the health, and even survival, of a flock. I&#;ve found the simplest way to understand the difference between pressure and volume is this: Pressure is how much force is needed to get water where it&#;s going; once it&#;s there, volume is how much water is needed to meet the flock&#;s demand.
Most integrators today require at least two water sources on every poultry farm &#; two wells or one well plus community water. They also provide guidelines on how many gallons of water per minute should be delivered.
&#;I don&#;t know&#;
To meet this need, many growers drill wells between the chicken houses so the supply is conveniently near the demand and to avoid long runs of pipe that can cause pressure loss. Yet, whenever I visit a farm and suspect water is adversely affecting bird performance, it&#;s difficult to get pertinent information. The first two questions I ask are:
More often than not, the answer I get to both questions is, &#;I don&#;t know.&#;
I&#;ve been on farms during summer afternoons where the house farthest from the well would only have about half of the cool-cell pad actually getting wet because there wasn&#;t enough water pressure or volume to reach the end of the line at that house. It&#;s hard to fix something if you don&#;t know it&#;s broken, and sometimes, growers simply don&#;t know something&#;s broken.
Undersized pump or supply lines
Using an undersized pump is a common mistake. If you have a pump capable of pumping 50 gallons per minute (gpm) but the total water demand by all your chicken houses is 70 gpm, you are going to have problems.
Another common mistake is utilizing an undersized supply line from the well to the chicken houses. If the water demand on the farm is 60 gpm and there&#;s a 2-inch supply line from the well to chicken houses, you cannot provide 60 gpm! A 2-inch pipe can carry only about 48 to 50 gpm.
Growers also often fail to increase the size of the supply line after they add additional houses. A four-house farm may be fine with a 2-inch supply line. However, if you build two additional houses and don&#;t upgrade to a 3-inch line or add an additional water source, there will be water-restriction issues.
Recently, conventional thinking has been that a typical 40-foot x 500-foot broiler house requires about 2 gpm for drinking and about 8 gpm for the cool cells (a total of about 10 gpm per house). However, chicken genetics change every year. Chickens today eat and drink more than they did just a few years ago. I&#;m pretty conservative, so I feel better recommending 3 gpm for drinking and 9 gpm for the cool cells. PVC pipe is inexpensive compared to what it will cost if you undersize your supply line and shortchange yourself on water.
Large birds need more water
Trouble with the water supply can also occur when growers switch from growing small birds (4.5 pounds or less) to large birds (9.5 pounds or more) without upgrading the supply line. Growing larger birds requires more water for both drinking and cooling. Improved cooling is typically achieved by adding an additional 20 feet or more of cool cell to each side of your house, which requires more water, and an additional one or two tunnel fans.
If you have an older farm that may only have a ¾-inch or 1-inch supply line, that line will not adequately handle the water demands of larger birds during later grow-out stages. You may need to increase the size of the well pump and the supply line in order to meet demands.
I can&#;t emphasize enough the importance of meeting peak water demand in summer with big chickens on the farm. You may only reach peak demand once or twice a year, but you must have the ability to do so. Otherwise, drinking and/or cooling water will be limited, which could prove disastrous with large birds in hot weather.
Realize that water filters further restrict flow. Water pressure will decrease approximately 5 pounds per square inch for each in-line water filter the water passes through. Pumping water uphill also results in a significant pressure loss before water ever reaches the houses; therefore, well placement is an important consideration.
Know peak demand
Know your peak 24-hour water demand. If there are big chickens on the farm, I&#;ve found this peak is usually in July or August. If your controller can record hourly data, watch for plateaus in water use during the hottest part of the day when demand is greatest. They could indicate the pump, supply, supply line or perhaps a combination of all three are undersized.
Water lines for drinkers should come off the supply line first before line(s) supplying cool cells and possibly foggers. Cool-cell water should not come off the supply line first because it will starve the drinker line. If there&#;s not a water meter on your cool-cell line, I advise adding one to track cool-cell water use. On hot days with big chickens, cool cells can use as much or more water than drinkers.
It should go without saying that the water supply should be tested for mineral concentrations and bacterial contamination to ensure it&#;s safe for poultry to drink.
Here&#;s a list that sums up the variety of problems that can affect water pressure and volume:
5-gallon bucket test
A quick estimation of how much water you can deliver is the 5-gallon bucket test. Fill a 5-gallon bucket with water from the control room and time how long it takes for the bucket to fill. The bucket will fill slower with birds in the house. A quick estimation is:
Over the years, I&#;ve had to tell a lot of growers their supply line was too small or their well pump was undersized. One of these conversations took place in September , so the problem is still out there today, especially on many older farms trying to grow birds larger than the farm was designed for.
It&#;s easy to ignore the water supply if the power is on and the well pump is running, but this is a mistake. Everything about managing a poultry farm is important, but nothing is more important than having enough water.
There is information out there to help you properly size for pressure and volume1,2,3,4. I recommend you take advantage of it! Understanding water pressure and volume will help keep your flock safe, healthy &#; and maybe even alive &#; during critical periods.
1 Barrett J, Tabler T. Private water well placement and sizing for poultry production. Mississippi State University Extension. Pub. . May.
2 Czarick M. Broiler farm water usage and pipe sizing rules of thumb. Poultry Housing Tips. University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Service. May.
3 Donald J, et al. Key water factors for broiler production. Alabama Poultry Engineering and Economics Newsletter. Auburn University. September.
4 Tabler T, et al. How total farm water pressure and volume affect commercial poultry production. Mississippi State University Extension. Pub. . March.
Editor&#;s note: The opinions and advice presented in this article belong to the author and, as such, are presented here as points of view, not specific recommendations by Poultry Health Today.
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If you&#;ve ever had chickens, you probably understand the frustrations that can come with the different types of chicken waterers. They run out quickly. They get knocked over. The water gets gross. We wanted something for our chicken tractor that could last for days without being refilled, not make a mess, and move along with the tractor. This gravity waterer DIY chicken waterer system made with waterer cups and pvc pipe does it all!
We&#;ll warn you in advance: the supplies list looks scary. But there&#;s an easy way to get everything you need. Just take this list to Home Depot or another home improvement store and show it to someone in the plumbing department. They&#;ll have the parts you need collected in no time, and then you can just follow these detailed picture instructions to put it together. It&#;s not nearly as complicated as the supplies list makes it look!
And it&#;s an intuitive project, so you can just follow the picture tutorial even if you&#;re not a written instructions person (but we wrote those down, too!).
This whole project came to about $80, and it will last for many years to come (and save us lots of work, too!).
This post contains affiliate links, which means that we make a small commission at no extra cost to you. You can view our full disclosure here.
We made this DIY waterer for our meat bird tractor, which usually has about 25 birds in it at a time. After filling the 5-gallon bucket, it&#;s usually enough water to last our flock for at least 3 days. This not only makes everyday chores easy, but it&#;s also super convenient if we want to go away on vacation for a few days and have a neighbor watch our animals.
Paired with our DIY chicken feeder, we can usually go a couple of days without having to do any chores, other than a quick check on the birds to make sure they&#;re all okay.
This automatic chicken waterer system means that new water replenishes the cups as the birds drink, so they always have fresh water in their cups. Once in awhile we&#;ll find chicken poop in the cups, but this literally happens like, a few times a month compared to the everyday messes of other chicken watering systems we&#;ve had in the past. I think it&#;s because the cups are small and they&#;re just not really convenient for pooping in?
If you have a movable coop or chicken tractor like we do, a huge benefit of this homemade chicken waterer is that is can actually move with your coop. We mounted our 5-gallon plastic bucket on the back wall of the coop and secured it with bungee cords. And the pvc and cups are mounted to 2x4s on the sides of the coop.
We used to keep a regular chicken waterer inside the chicken coop and move it in and out every time we moved the tractor, which got to be a hassle after awhile. Having the water system move with the coop is a huge benefit of this design if you have a movable coop or tractor.
A major benefit of putting this waterer together yourself is that you can totally adjust it to fit your coop. Choose the number of cups you want based on your flock size, direct the pvc whichever way you choose, and customize it in whatever position you like. You can also use a larger bucket or even a rain barrel if you&#;re watering a lot of chickens.
Okay, this is where it gets a little intimidating, but don&#;t get overwhelmed! Copy and paste this list into a document, then take it to Home Depot, Menards, Lowe&#;s, or maybe even your local hardware store and ask someone in the plumbing section to help you gather your supplies. Those guys (and gals) are experts.
You&#;ll need a drill, a drill bit (we used a 1-1/2&#; hole saw bit), a handful of exterior wood screws, a 5-gallon bucket with a lid, your chicken watering cups (you can use as many as you like &#; we used 8) and the rest of your plumbing supplies.
You&#;ll want to determine the placement of your water holding tank (which is a 5-gallon bucket in our case) and where the cup waterers will be.
Note: The important part is to not fight gravity. Place the bucket higher in elevation than where the cup waterers will be for optimal water flow.
We decided to place our waterers on either side of the chicken tractor so that the chickens wouldn&#;t crowd all in the same place. This also helped to spread their manure out better.
When you&#;ve determined the locations for the bucket and waterers, prepare those areas to be able to mount your pvc pipe for the waterers and the bucket.
For the bucket, we used some old Ikea brackets we had laying around and installed those on some vertical 2x2s screwed to the back frame of the chicken tractor. It was important to make sure that it was spaced such that the bucket would be supported, but also leave enough room underneath for the plumbing to pass through easily.
To hold the bucket in place, we simply used 2 bungee straps to be sure it wouldn&#;t fall off. We also made sure we had some nailer boards on the inside of the tractor that our pipe straps will be screwed to, holding the pvc pipe securely in place.
We&#;ve written out the instructions because they may be helpful for some readers. But, if the details and terms confuse you, just follow the pictures instead! We honestly didn&#;t know what most pieces were called when we made this chicken waterer. It was more of an intuitive project. But, we researched the terms afterward and wrote them down here for those who may find them helpful!
No matter how much you love your backyard chickens, it&#;s nice when you don&#;t have to worry about getting them clean water every day! The water in the bucket lasts us for days. But when it&#;s empty, we just drag the hose over and open the top of the bucket to fill it. No lugging heavy buckets around or re-filling waterers every day!
If you&#;re starting with chicks, you&#;ll probably need a regular, standalone chicken waterer for the first couple of weeks before you move to this automatic waterer system. This is because if you build your this DIY pvc chicken waterer at the right height for full-grown chickens, the cups will be too high for chicks to reach at the beginning. And you don&#;t want to have to re-build the whole design once your chicks are a few weeks old!
A regular, inexpensive chick waterer from the feed store or Amazon will keep your chicks hydrated for the first few weeks until they&#;re tall enough to use the DIY waterer.
We used these automatic waterer cups from Amazon, and they worked really well for our chickens. They stay full all the time, so it&#;s an easy way for the birds to be able to drink as they please.
You can learn from our mistakes though, because before we bought these cups, we tried the triggered cups. These cups have a valve that the chickens have to pluck in order to get the water out. Although it sounds like a nice idea, our chickens just could not understand how to use them. We ended up having to keep giving them another waterer so they didn&#;t dehydrate.
We found that the automatic cups were the best way to make sure they have the water they need, no matter how small their brains are!
Update: We upgraded to these automatic watering cups our second year and found that they&#;re a bit better quality.
It&#;s a good idea to buy a few more cups than you&#;ll need. If one breaks or cracks, the water will continue flowing through that hole in your PVC, and it will end up just draining all your water and flooding your coop. Check your water level and coop every once in awhile to make sure everything&#;s intact, and keep those extras handy just in case one fails. (We haven&#;t had any fail yet, but you never know.)
Part of the benefit of this system is that it&#;s really adaptable to fit your specific coop and your flock. For example, if you have a non-movable coop, you might choose a larger holding tank. Or, you could even use a rain barrel that you can mount somewhere on your coop, barn, or chicken run. A large bin or tub can also be the best idea if you have a lot of chickens. Obviously a 5-gallon water supply won&#;t go nearly as far with a large number of chickens as it does with our 25!
You can also make this gravity system using cheap buckets you have lying around. Just make sure they&#;re sturdy and have no holes. (Having a lid is handy too for keeping the water clean.) You don&#;t have to buy a brand new 5-gallon bucket for your water source.
This DIY waterer cost about us $80 to make. We wanted something that would move with our chicken tractor, fill automatically with gravity, and keep the water reasonably clean. This was a fairly easy solution that cuts down on chore time and will last for years.
The amount of water your waterer will hold depends on what size bucket your choose. So choose the right size for your flock! We used a 5-gallon bucket, and it lasts for 3-4 days for our flock of 25 birds.
Paired with our diy feeder, our flock can go a few days without us having to fill their food or water. Our diy automatic chicken feeder is actually a really simple design that you can make with just a bucket, a port kit, and a drill. And, it only costs about $25 to make!
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