Chicken Waterer Reviews from an off-grid perspective.

Taking care of chickens is a little easier in the spring/summer months because of not having to worry about their water to freeze, but here is what we have found out after keeping chickens for the past 2 winters.  THEIR WATER WILL FREEZE, we don’t have the power to have a water heater on constantly overnight, so we rotate water out in the mornings and ask neighbors for help if we are away from the boomstead for more than three days  We also learned that CHICKENS ARE STRONG BADASS MOTHER CLUCKERS and they don’t need much in winter besides shelter, some food and some fresh water preferably every morning but they have gone a couple of days without water and they do just fine. They may even keep laying eggs depending on how happy you are keeping your hens and if they are molting or not during your winter months. Their first year they laid eggs all winter with out any supplemental heat or light; this winter egg production has slowed due to molting. We will never add supplemental heat or light these animals are prehistoric, they don’t need much help besides the bare minimum is our firm belief.

Now on to our Chicken Waterer reviews:  We have tried every chicken waterer available on the market – besides the heated ones, like I mentioned above they pull too much wattage at night and in the shorter winter months for our off-grid system and in the summer we don’t need heated water.

– THE GIANT 6 GALLON MEGA FLOCK WATERER:  Anyways we both this giant 6 gallon plastic gravity feeding waterer before our extended summer vacation down south (we only have 6 birds, this water is meant for like 20+ birds, but we figure it was an easier way for our neighbors to not have to come check on the chooks as much but we found out it doesn’t work – we took it back the next day because the water would not enter the fountain for the chickens to drink. Maybe user error but I can’t use a product that is unreliable and doesn’t consistently work.

-THE DIY WATERERS:  We bought the plastic mini-chicken bowl things and metal chicken plucker water “hamster” things to make our own 5 gallon waterer – they dripped and/or the chickens did not drink form them. Overall, a waste of time and money

-METAL GRAVITY FED CHICKEN WATERER:  We have bought the big metal gravity chicken waterers and they were working great the first year and over the summer but this winter we have had mega problems with them leaking over and spilling all over the chicken coop – not something You really want to deal with in the winter or on the regular. Talk about waste of water and annoying as F%$!. I think it has something to do with it freezing and expanding the metal and then defrosting and shrinking back and/or air getting trapped and allowing it to seep through slow enough to break the seal when defrosting causing a huge mess, but I am not a scientist an this is just based off observation and experience with the F$%!ERS.

– THE 1 GALLON GRAVITY FED DOG WATERER GONE CHICKEN WATERER: We were fed up with dealing with frozen chicken waterers that spill into our tiny house every day when the seal breaks from defrosting and unfreezing in our living room because let’s be honest we are not the best about going out at night and bringing it in before it freezes. We fell onto this awesome and final water solution when we had not choice but to leave them the 1 gallon dog waterer when we were headed for the mountains for a few nights and knew they need water for the next few days that din’t not leak all over their coop. It works great , doesn’t leak and when it freezes it defrosts nicely without breaking any type of seal that would cause it to spill over into our tiny house. Problem solved!

Last Chicken Waterer Tip: Make friends with your neighbors, do something nice for them, or pay them to help out when you are away from the flock for extended periods of time. You and your chickens will appreciate the community support!