Winter Chicken Watering System No cleaning easy to fill cheap and efficient

Are you sick of cleaning out those traditional water dispensers? For years when I was a kid my least favorite part about having chickens was that I had to go out in the cold and clean out their water dispenser and even though we had it on a hot plate it seemed to freeze anyway. Check out this watering system from the SSLFamlyDad that addresses these issues and saves money on energy.


I have tried different things with other watering systems for the chickens and had mixed results. Although I am probably not done experimenting with different ideas, this is the latest:) This system is made of a small 2 gallon Coleman cooler and a few PVC fittings and small sections of pipe.
I started by removing the spigot that comes installed in the cooler. You can then use a 1/2" male and 1/2" female threaded PVC adapter to connect through where the spigot was. I would recommend using some silicone around the fittings to ensure a good seal.

On the inside of the cooler glue in a 1/2" street 90 and point it upward. This will allow some water to always stay in the bottom of the system so that the heater does not burn up. Next, on the outside or the cooler, you can attach any configuration of piping and the chicken nipples that you would like but I chose a basic spilt setup.

I attached a short piece of pipe to the outside 1/2" fitting and then a tee. One short piece of pipe on each side of the tee with a cap on one side and a 90 on the other. On the side with the 90 I ran that up to another 90 at the same height as I want the highest water level to be in the cooler. This will hopefully prevent overfilling from the outside. This section will be run out through the coop wall so that I can fill it from the outside.

For the chicken drippers you can size up a small bolt that matches the thread size of the drippers for pre-threading the holes. I used an 11/32" drill bit to drill one hole in each side of the pipe coming out of the tee on the bottom. You can then thread in the appropriate sized bolt and back out to create some threads to start the plastic drippers. Use some silicone or thread sealant and thread in the drippers, one on each side. I also wrapped the piping in 1/2 foam insulation and some electrical tape. 


The last things is to mount the 50 watt aquarium heater to the bottom using the included suction cup. I also put a dab of silicone on the suction cup to hold it down firmly to the bottom. I also cut a small notch in the lid threads on the cooler to feed out the cord for the heater as well.

You are now ready to install it in the coop. I made a small shelf for mine inside the coop for the winter but I am not sure if I will continue to keep the system inside the coop as it tends to make a mess. I will update on that later. I routed my fill pipe out the back wall of the coop and placed a small threaded fitting there so I can attach a homemade PVC funnel to it for filling. You could also omit this step and just open the lid and pour in some water that way as well.


Once you are all setup you can just plug in the aquarium heater to electric however you can (extension cord, hardwired electric box, etc). I also use what is called a thermostatic electric outlet in my setup. This outlet only powers on the heater when the temp reaches 32 degrees or below and stays on until it gets up to 44 and then shuts off. This prevents me from heating water when it is warm outside and thus saving on electric costs. I have used this same outlet for a heat lamp in the past and it works great.

Full Video Walkthrough here

All you need for this project below

2 Gallon cooler - http://amzn.to/1MsHgAY
5 Gallon cooler - http://amzn.to/1QyXBZ5
ThermoCube outlet - http://tinyurl.com/qz5aa9c
Chicken Drippers - http://amzn.to/1uQ8PIM

All of these products and more recommended items from the SSL Family are available at the Simple Suburban Living

General Store - http://astore.amazon.com/simpsubulivi-20

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No Heaters and the Fish are Still Alive

A picture of one of my bluegills from last summer

One of the most fundamental tenets of medical ethics is primum non nocere, or "first, do no harm." In the practice of medicine, this means it may be better to do nothing rather than commit an act that risks causing more harm than good. When it comes to aquaponics, Ive taken this advice to heart when it comes to feeding my fish and heating their environment.

I covered the greenhouse in early January but I didnt get around to connecting my rocket mass heater and solar heaters. Last year I was worried about either exhaust leaks or melting things in the case of the rocket mass heater or pumping cold air into the greenhouse during overcast days in the case of the solar heater. I eventually figured out how to overcome these difficulties. But 24 hours isnt enough time to do everything I want to accomplish in a day. As a result, my lovely heaters havent been in use this winter. When I say "No Heaters and the Fish are Still Alive," I mean there has been no supplemental heat at all this entire winter.

And yet the fish (goldfish, bluegill) have survived.

I had a scare while we were fixing dinner for Chinese New Year. My son-in-law mentioned the green onions in the dishes were from the garden. Since I hadnt been to the garden that day, I asked about my goldfish. The goldfish live in the sump tank, and the sump tank water levels had gotten low that week.

He said, "I didnt see any goldfish. But the water is only a quarter inch deep in that tank."

I was sure the fish were dead. But when I got a chance to go out and inspect, I saw that the sump tank, though nearly empty, still had a couple of inches in the bottom. The pump is elevated on a pad so it stops pumping water when the level drops that low. The three goldfish were still in there, alive and well though cold.

In the same vein, Ive worried about the bluegill. During cold snaps, Ive gone for days and even weeks without visiting the greenhouse, much less feeding the fish. Whenever that happens, I begin to worry that Ive got a tank full of cold water filled with dead fish. Im just hard-wired to think an animal has to eat every day. Intellectually I know its actually more harmful to feed fish when the water is nearly freezing. But the anxiety monster grows until I get a chance to go out and lift the lid of the tank. So far Ive not had a single bluegill die.

I did lose my single surviving minnow, a fathead minnow or toughie (tuffie) as they are sometimes called. However, these minnows are only supposed to have a lifespan of 14 months. Its rather astounding that this solitary fish had managed to survive for at least 22 months after I bought him. If I thought my toughie had died of disease, I would have disposed of him outside the garden. Old age, however, isnt a communicable disease.Since the water was near freezing, I slid him into the bluegill tank, where one of the fish made a quick meal of my toughies mortal remains.

Though nighttime temperatures will continue to drop below freezing, the weather should warm from here on out, on average. More importantly, the days will become increasingly warm, and the longer days will begin pumping heat energy into the greenhouse, to the point that I may have to start lifting the side walls by April or May.


Average highs, lows, and rainfall

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Square Foot Gardening with Aquaponics

A Grow Bed with a Grid

I like the idea of square foot gardening - marking your growing space into square patches that are each about one square foot in area. But since I have these oval rubbermaid tanks, I hadnt wrapped my mind around how to do the marks.

But this past February I decided to pay attention and figure something out. I took some thin rope and black binder clips. The binder clips can be the small ones that hold 3/8-inch of paper. This allows them to grab onto the edge of the lip of the rim securely. Then the thin rope is tied between the handles of the binder clips on opposite sides of the grow bed.

When I initially created the grid, the rope was slack. Heres where the rounded edges come in handy. I moved one of the binder clips for each pair around the lip so the distance between the two clips was smaller. I re-tied the rope between the clips, then slid the clip back into position. This made the rope taught.

Once I was done, I broadcast seeded the squares, as well as planting my floating raft. I also added seed to bare patches in my two grow beds that still had plants that had survived the winter. Heres the map I drew for myself.



I planted seeds on 2/16, and a month later the bok choy, turnips, and radishes have germinated. Im starting to see hints of cabbage and leek, and my carrots and beets are still AWOL. Im sure they would have germinated more quickly inside, but direct seeding is much easier. And even though most of the nights since February 16th have dipped below freezing, the temperature of the water in the fish tanks has held steady at 40-50 degrees, as measured by my "through the cover" meat thermometer.


My tank temperature was still 38 degrees on February 23rd, even though night-time temperatures had dipped well below freezing for six nights in a row leading up to this picture.

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