In this tutorial, I show you how to make a clean, efficient nipple waterer for your chicks using a push-in poultry nipple and a couple of easy-to-find items. If you’d rather not do this yourself, you can purchase one of our ready-to-use Brooder Bottles here.
Health and Safety
How to make a simple nipple waterer for your chick brooder
Saturday, March 30th, 2013
NEW: Chick Brooder Cages
Wednesday, March 6th, 2013
I’m gonna miss hearing the “cheep, cheep, cheep. . . “ of baby chicks this spring. Our current backyard flock is still healthy and laying strong, so it could be another couple years before we get to raise another batch of chicks.
I’ll be ready for them, anyway.
The first time we raised chicks, we rigged up a large cardboard contraption as their brooder and kept them in the garage. It did the trick, and as new chicken owners we had a lot of excess energy to put into making it work. Daily cleanup was a process, and the final cleanup (dust everywhere) was even more involved.
This last go-round, we brooded them outside in the hen house of The Garden Ark, then graduated them to The Garden Coop hen house. That worked out really well, since keeping them outside also kept the dust outside.
But next time, the coops may still be occupied, so we’re gonna start them in one of these wire cage brooders that we now offer at TheGardenCoop.com. Take a look.
How do you brood your backyard chicks? What’s worked and not worked for you? Leave a comment below and let us know!
Growing up with chickens: 5 things city kids learn by keeping a backyard flock
Wednesday, February 15th, 2012If you frequent Coop Thoughts, chances are you caught this recent coop-building story by Morgan Emrich. I love his take on things, so I invited him to author a post about his experience keeping chickens. Here it is. . .
Kids, Meet Chickens
I would love to raise my kids on a farm. For a lot of reasons, that’s not going to happen. Like the majority of Americans I’m tethered to the city. But that doesn’t mean my children (9, 7, and 5 years old) can’t learn some of the lessons that farm kids take for granted.
Enter chickens.
Turns out a small flock of hens in the backyard can go a long way towards exposing children to things most city dwellers only get to read about in books. The concepts of natural cycles, environmental stewardship, biology, and our place in nature are no longer abstractions for my kids. Thanks to a small coop and a few chickens, these types of things have become concrete realities.
In particular, their feathered teachers have taught them five key lessons: (more…)
Poultry nipples for making your own chicken waterer
Wednesday, January 4th, 2012
In addition to fully assembled chicken waterers, we’re now also offering the push-in poultry nipples you need to make your own.
These are the same push-in style nipples we use to make our waterers, sold separately in packs of five. They are made of quality stainless steel parts inside a durable, hard, red plastic casing, and they’re sealed with a long-lasting silicone grommet. Made in China.
Use a 3/8″ drill bit to make a hole in your tubing or container. Insert the grommet first, then the nipple. Moistening it may help it go in easier. If you are going to seal your container, be sure to create a separate hole near the top (above the water line) so that air can enter as the water goes out.
These are the same push-in style nipples we use to make our waterers, sold separately in packs of five. They are made of quality stainless steel parts inside a durable, hard, red plastic casing, and they’re sealed with a long-lasting silicone grommet. Take a look.
How to wrap your chicken coop for the winter
Friday, November 25th, 2011
For the past few winters, I’ve wrapped our Garden Coop in plastic sheeting to keep driving rain and snow (mostly rain here in the Pacific Northwest) out of the run area.
I’d love to say I do this for artistic reasons, à la Christo, but it’s really all about practicality. Plastic film is inexpensive, easy to put up, and keeps your hens dry and happy. And in the spring, you can just take it down, roll it up, and store it out of the way.
There are other solutions, of course — sheet siding, acrylic panels, canvas, landscape fabric. Let me know in the comments what has worked for you. (more…)
Discount code for non-toxic wood treatment and stains from Timber Pro UV
Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011
For visitors to TheGardenCoop.com, I’ve arranged a discount from Portland’s own Timber Pro UV on their non-toxic wood treatments and stains.
In particular, their Internal Wood Stabilizer product is ideally suited for chicken coops like The Garden Coop and The Garden Ark, safely protecting exposed exterior softwoods from rot and moisture damage in a way that stain or paint alone cannot.
Learn more and get the Timber Pro UV discount code here.
New nipple waterer for chickens
Tuesday, September 27th, 2011
Several months ago on the advice of a customer, I decided to make a DIY nipple waterer for our backyard chickens. Our birds were just chicks at the time, and keeping them supplied with fresh, clean water with their jar-and-saucer waterer was a frequent chore.
So I fashioned a simple waterer from a used plastic jug and a poultry nipple I bought online. The chicks took right to it, and the difference was remarkable.
No more spilled water. No more poopy water. No more worrying that their water had run dry.
When the flock graduated to the coop, their makeshift waterer went with them, and I started working on a more permanent solution for their larger space.
Here’s the nipple waterer I came up with — which I now also make to sell — and some videos showing you what you get and how it works. (more…)
Winter Chicken Coop Care, Part 4: Heating your chicken coop.
Thursday, November 18th, 2010This is the last in a four-part series on getting your chickens and coop ready for the winter.
Once you’ve done everything else, you may find that you still want to provide extra warmth in your coop. We don’t heat the chicken coops in our yard, but many backyard chicken keepers in steady sub-freezing conditions have need for and success with artificial (electric) heat, through lamps, radiant heaters, and heated waterers.
Here are some tips I’ve gathered from customers and others who have used electric heat effectively (and be sure to read the comments section for more tips and advice, particularly if you keep males as well as females): (more…)
Winter Chicken Coop Care, Part 3: Outfit your chicken coop for the winter.
Wednesday, November 17th, 2010This is the third in a four-part series on getting your chickens and coop ready for the winter.
Now we turn to the coop itself. In mild climates, chickens need only basic protection from the elements year round. If your coop keeps your hens dry and away from drafts, chances are you don’t need to make any special changes to it for the winter. If you expect temperatures to dip below freezing for a sustained time, you may want to take some added precautions to winterize your chicken coop: (more…)
Winter Chicken Coop Care, Pt. 2: How chickens keep themselves warm — and how you can help them.
Monday, November 15th, 2010This is the second in a four-part series on preparing your backyard chickens and coop for cold weather.
Most standard laying hens are quite cold hardy (check this handy breed chart). Just look at their names: Plymouth Rock, Rhode Island Red, New Hampshire Red. . . . These girls were bred to withstand cold climates well before the advent of electric heat. So how do they manage to withstand temperatures that send us scampering for the nearest cup of cocoa? (more…)
Winter Chicken Coop Care, Part 1: Clean your coop.
Friday, November 12th, 2010
Whether it’s your first winter keeping chickens or your fiftieth, it’s helpful to have a checklist for preparing your backyard coop for the change of seasons. Of course, what’s on your list will depend on a lot of things including your particular climate, coop design, chicken breeds, routines, and more.
In this four-part series, I’ll share what has worked for us to get our backyard chickens and coops ready for the cold. I’ll also include several ideas offered by The Garden Coop Facebook community and others on how to keep your flock healthy all winter long. So here we go. . . (more…)
How to break a broody hen
Friday, June 4th, 2010
I’ve been looking into this recently, since one of our hens, a Welsummer, is passing the typical three-week window of broodiness. Here are three of the most common methods we’ve found for breaking a hen’s broody mood:
- Put the hen in a small cage with a wire bottom (at least 1″ square openings) and elevate it off the ground so that cool air can circulate underneath. Include food and water, of course. It may take a few days in solitary to do the trick.
- After dark, move the hen from her nesting box onto the perch with the rest of the flock, and block her access back into the nesting box for the night. It may take a few nights of doing this to see results.
- Dunk the hen in a bucket of cool water up to her neck. Some claim luck with this, others not.
All these methods have something to do with cooling down the temperature of the hen’s chest. There’s also always the option of finding someone with fertile eggs to hatch and letting your hen do the job. It’s worth noting too that some breeds (Buff Orpingtons, for instance) go broody more often than others.
From a coop design standpoint, this is where an extra nesting box can come in handy. When a hen is broody, she will not want to get out of her box. That leaves the others either searching for a new place to lay their eggs or — as we’ve seen with our flock — to climb into the box with the broody hen and lay their eggs there anyway.
Strange birds.
Have you successfully broken a broody hen? How’d you do it? And if you couldn’t snap her out of it, what happened next? Leave a reply and let us know!
Urban foxes in Melbourne, Australia (and how to protect your chickens)
Thursday, April 29th, 2010Apparently, people, there is a growing problem with urban foxes in the major cities of Australia. I learned about this from a customer who wrote for ways to keep his flock secure from these foxes in a mobile chicken coop like The Garden Ark.
To hear what I proposed pertaining to predator proofing his portable poultry pen, please press play. . .
Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.
(runs 4:18)
Or read on. . .
Make It Your Own: Dan’s Garden Coop, Madison, Wisconsin (VIDEO)
Tuesday, March 30th, 2010Madison, Wisconsin. Where the winters are mean and the chickens are many. I got a note recently from Dan Marleau, a customer in Madison, who wanted to pass along this video tour of his backyard chicken coop, built using The Garden Coop plans and adding some of his own modifications. Take a look.
I asked Dan if he would share more of his experience keeping chickens in cold climates, specifically, what extra steps did he take to prepare his Garden Coop and his flock for the Wisconsin winter. Here’s what he had to say. . . (more…)
Got chicks. Now what?
Thursday, February 18th, 2010
You’ve picked out the cutest little fluff balls you could find to start your flock. Now it’s time to set them up in a brooder, give them some feed and water, and hope they grow into a sturdy flock of backyard hens (no roosters. . . no roosters. . .).
There aren’t too many choices you have to make right now, but there are some. Medicated or organic feed? Where to put the brooder? What bedding to use? How to control the dust? (Chicks produce an unfathomable amount of nano-chicky-dust.)
I’ll post more on these topics soon. But for now, check out this chronicle from Amy over at Garden Rant. She’s starting a small flock too and gives a good description of the basic setup.
