Livestock Bucket Waterer for Ducklings

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I've got ten ducklings in a small brooder with a bunch of chicks, and six goslings in another small brooder. Waterfowl make a huge mess with their water, and they tend to throw all the water out of the standard chick waterers quickly. I've been refilling their waterers every couple of hours all day long. It was getting a little tiresome, so I did a you-tube search and found this:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75YljjrYikE


There isn't room in my small brooders for a bucket, so I found some smaller containers and used his idea on them, and it works! I'll still keep an eye on the water levels, because I have some small chicks that won't be able to reach the water if the level drops too much (on the other hand, they were the first ones to figure out this new way of getting water!). But they shouldn't be out of water half the time, and I can already tell that the water mess is being contained inside the containers.

The goslings were really slow to figure theirs out -- I think they might need bigger holes. But they seem to have the idea now.

We have a hard frost tonight, but tomorrow I should be able to put the older babies out (with heat plates) into the outdoor baby pens. The Slow Whites will need to stay in the house for a few more days as they are quite a bit smaller than the other chicks yet.

Kathleen

 

[philkar]

We hand raised 8 ducklings last Aug. What an experience! Water mess doesn't do it justice! Wish I had had this waterer then. All of our ducks survived and successfully moved to the pond where they can make all the mess they want to!

 

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I finished moving the goslings and ducklings out to a small shed in the back yard yesterday (they have a heat plate for at least a couple more weeks). I made one of the bucket waterers for them, and it's great! They will have access to a small pond once they are full-grown, but until then, we'll be using the bucket waterer.

Kathleen