Poultry Keepers Podcast

Poultry Water Systems-Part 1

• Rip Stalvey • Season 3 • Episode 138

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Welcome to another episode of The Poultry Keepers Podcast! In this first part of our two-part deep dive, Carey Blackmon and Jeff Mattocks unpack everything you need to know about poultry water systems—from nipple and cup design to keeping water clean, cool, and algae-free.

Whether you’re raising a few backyard hens or managing a larger breeding flock, clean water is critical for bird health, growth, and egg production. Carey and Jeff share practical solutions for summer heat, winter freeze protection, pH balance, and choosing the right equipment for chicks, layers, and turkeys.

In this episode you’ll learn:

  • How water quality affects feed intake and production.
  • The difference between chick, layer, and turkey nipple drinkers.
  • Safe ways to reduce algae and keep systems clean.
  • How temperature and light affect water consumption.
  • Smart hacks to cool water in summer and prevent freezing in winter.
  • Why system design matters for consistent flock health.

This episode is packed with proven tips, real-world experiences, and Jeff Mattocks’ professional insight into water quality and system setup.

🎧 Listen now at  : www.thepoultrykeeperspodcast.com  Then get ready for Part 2 of Poultry Water Systems next week!

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Alex:

Welcome to another episode of the Poultry Keepers Podcast. You know, providing your birds with a constant source of clean fresh water is so important. Today Carey Blackmon and Jeff Mattocks do a deep dive into Poultry Water Systems to take the confusion and frustration out of this important topic. Now here's Carey and Jeff.

Carey Blackmon:

We have. What I consider a pretty important topic we're gonna talk about water.

Jeff Blackmon:

That's the second thing most, that is so exciting. That is the second most important for all living creatures. Right?

Carey Blackmon:

I've tried so many different watering systems over the years. You and I have talked about different systems that I've tried things to try to make it different things to try to make it better. So I figured, hey, look, you know what, there's people out there. I've seen a lot in the PK 360 group and in the peak poultry breeder nutrition group. A lot of people. Are getting chicks this time of year or a lot of people are just getting into chickens this time of year. So I figured, hey, look, it'd be a great time to hopefully save them a lot of headaches and screaming fits making up some four letter words. Save'em all that trouble, and maybe they can learn from the crap that we've been through,

Jeff Blackmon:

maybe. Maybe, but the reality of it is people have to work through their own iterations of mistakes. Okay. There's a very small percentage who actually learn from other people's mistakes, but that's all right.

Carey Blackmon:

It's

Jeff Blackmon:

all right.

Carey Blackmon:

We can give'em some ideas and Yeah, they can try it and see if it works or not themselves.

Jeff Blackmon:

Yeah. Okay. So the concept that I was bugging you about, that you're gonna talk about tonight it is gonna be mind blowing for a lot of the people listening tonight. Just, anyway,

Carey Blackmon:

I gave you a lot of mess years ago about chicken feed and I had to eat crow on that one. So this time when you are like, Hey, you should try this, I was like what would it look like? Okay. I like the concept and to be honest, I have birds that are using that now. They're growing faster. They're healthier. Their combs and waddles are red. While everybody else is miserably molten, and I just, it works. Now I will say this Turkey nipples and chicken nipples are different.

Jeff Blackmon:

You do not use, you don't use a Turkey nipple for a chicken, right?

Carey Blackmon:

I was like, okay, look, I'll get these. I'll use these and then that and no. So I just raised my nipple line up high where only the turkeys could play with it.

Jeff Blackmon:

They're not created equal and yeah. Like a chick nipple is not the same as a mature bird nipple, right? They may specified to deliver a certain amount of water per peck, right? And like a layer nipple is gonna deliver way more than a chick needs. And a Turkey nipple is gonna deliver a lot more than a chick or a chicken needs. So anyway, I know that is true. We're just teasing them with what we're gonna talk about. But you can roll into it whenever you like. But look,

Carey Blackmon:

look, I'll say this I'm huge fan. I have, so what got me into that type watering is that's all my quail use period. Since brooder, they've never had anything else. When they go into the cage, they're on the my pigs. It don't matter what you build a watering system out of, even steel, a pig could tear it up. You get a steel pipe, stainless steel pipe and a stainless steel nipple. They haven't tore that up yet. No. Now

Jeff Blackmon:

they'll sit and play with it. Now wait, if you get it too close or you get it inside their pen fully right where they can They'll find a way to destroy that as well. So

Carey Blackmon:

just, so what I did was. I've got it hanging from a tree inside their pen with a spring on it. And it's really funny because they'll be drinking from it and they'll want to get ornery with it and start fighting with it. And that spring to pullet right back outta their mouth. And when you see that I'm gonna set a camera up and hope I can get a video shot of that happening. Because it is hilarious.

Jeff Blackmon:

Yep. But anyway, we're here to talk about chicken, water

Carey Blackmon:

Sip happens. We're going, talk about some hacks and stuff. This right here, this is a Jeff inspired slide'cause he don't care about nothing but quality and I like that. You want the pH between six and a half and seven and a half. You want your water to be clear, don't it smell like bleach or sulfur. Although I will say if you're on a well and it slightly smells of sulfur you will probably never have a problem with mites or anything like that. Let's see. In the winter, in the summertime, you want your water to be cool. 50 to 70 degrees. Now, some ways to do that, lots of people use just, the water tanks. Get you some 20 ounce water bottles and freeze'em and stick'em in there in the morning before you go to work or get you some large. Ice cube trays. One of the one that works really well is in my, in one of my chicken yards. I've got a lot individually pinned up and they have half gallon water cups. I have some that make two inch spheres and they're really cool. I stick one of those in their water cup in the morning and they go nuts. They'll peck on it for a while. So it gives them fun and it keeps their water cool throughout the day. That works now for our friends in other countries that use the other system, 10 to 21 degrees Celsius. It is gonna be where you want your water in the summertime. Now, in the wintertime, you want it 33 degrees. At least anything above freezing, they're gonna love it just like we do. We'll be outside and come in and get us a cold glass of water or grab a bottle of water right out of the fridge. They like it too. Jeff, while you was out, I was telling'em about making spheres. To put in water cups or freezing bottles or if they have a big enough reservoir that has a huge top, you can get two liters. You can get gallon jugs and cut the top off of them, anything like that, that you can freeze a big chunk and put the whole chunk of ice in there. A large chunk of ice as it thaws out more water. They're good.

Jeff Blackmon:

The bigger the reservoir, the bigger the ice needs to be, but, to keep it, keep it cooler longer. Yeah.

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah.'cause you can take a handful of ice and cool down a cup, but you're gonna need a lot to cool down a hundred

Jeff Blackmon:

gallon tank. Yeah, you really need to be thinking at about the 10% or higher level, 10 to 20% of the volume. Like you're 40 gallon, your new system and I don't know how they're gonna talk about that, but your new system, they ought to be like five gallons of five gallon block of ice. So if you're freezing a five gallon PAE of water, that

Carey Blackmon:

So the five gallon pale won't fit.

Jeff Blackmon:

Come on. Oh, you desired, you.

Carey Blackmon:

Cheers.

Jeff Blackmon:

You didn't with clearances. Okay.

Carey Blackmon:

Tank tank number one about the biggest thing you're gonna get is a one of those ice cream buckets. That's about as big as it's gonna get now, but you can get a couple in there. I'm working, I am in the process to try to source some 30 gallon drums where the whole lid removes.

Jeff Blackmon:

Okay, but aren't you using a 45 gallon trash can?

Carey Blackmon:

No. No. I'm using a 30 gallon drum.

Jeff Blackmon:

Okay.

Carey Blackmon:

Let's see. RS has a question. How much does one laying hand drink on average?

Jeff Blackmon:

Okay, it should be between six and eight ounces per day.

Carey Blackmon:

Yep.

Jeff Blackmon:

Water consumption should always be twice as much as the feed consumption by weight. So if your bird's eating three ounces, the average will be six ounces of water. If it's eating four ounces of feed. It'll average eight ounces of water. So the rule of thumb is two to one by weight. And that's always held true. And when I see that is not actually holding out, it's a pretty good indicator that the water quality is not good at all. So the bird's not drinking. It's full regiment of water.

Carey Blackmon:

So the exception to that, that I have found is. July and August,

Jeff Blackmon:

it'll be higher than,

Carey Blackmon:

yeah. Yeah. On a hundred plus degree days, I guarantee you they're drinking more than six ounces of water. Right.

Jeff Blackmon:

They might be hitting 10, and when you get cold cooler. You could drop down to five or six when they should be drinking eight. So that's based, that's a temperature based, that average like 75, 80 degrees. It's gonna be two to one. And, but when you're talking about, extreme temperatures one way or the other, it can be off one to two ounces, and there again, like in the winter, it depends on. How cool your water or how you know, how warm or cold your water is. And the same thing if you, when you figure out how to chill your water for the summertime, then they won't drink that 10 ounces anymore.

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah. Would their poops be funnier on hotter days due to the water intake increase?

Jeff Blackmon:

Yeah. On extremely,

Carey Blackmon:

yeah.

Jeff Blackmon:

On extremely hot days. They will increase their water intake and you're gonna get some droppings that, just look more like a puddle, kind of greenish white. And they don't stand up at all. That's okay. Yeah. It's normal.

Carey Blackmon:

Yep. I'm getting ready to go out of town for a few days and I was making sure everything was good in my yard, checking all my birds and. Nine o'clock, nine 30 this morning it was about 85 degrees already and one walked by me and I don't, why can't it just go somewhere else and do this? I don't know, but it just did it right there by me, and it was like nasty and green. And at first I was like, Hey, that ain't supposed to look like that. But then I looked down at my shirt and it's soaking wet oh it's really hot today. It's probably already been drinking a lot.

Jeff Blackmon:

Yeah.

Carey Blackmon:

Yep. You'll wanna avoid standing algae. You can add pieces of copper pipe. Rotate your wattles, clean them out every day or every two days. Containers with lids. If you're using some type of reservoir system to feed cups or anything like that, if you use black tube instead of a clear tube, that's better also if you use a black bucket instead of a opaque bucket. Sometimes when you get a jug and you can see through it, that's what I mean by opaque. And if you get a, if you get a black one or the blue ones from Lowe's, no light really gets through that. The orange ones from Home Depot, I would paint those because light does go through those, but anything like that. Make sure you put a lid on it. That is the less light you can let get to that water, the less algae will grow. And if you put some copper in it, magic happens and you don't have algae.

Jeff Blackmon:

Yeah, the copper. Just for clarity, right? For people that the copper works on the lower end of the pH spectrum. So if your water is up there at seven, five, or eight, you're not gonna get the effects outta the copper that you want, right? So you need some slight acidity to get that copper tube to break down. But just slow release, I don't wanna say breakdown, right? People are gonna start thinking about copper dissolving. The pH you'd have to get to for copper to really start dissolving is pretty low, at six or six five, it's gonna have a, an extremely slow release, but it's enough release of copper to keep the algae under control. And you've ever gone by a pond that looks blue or bluish green, they've treated that with copper sulfate, right? Copper is a very widely used. Alga side, for ponds, pools, whatever. And

Carey Blackmon:

jeff, you will be very proud of me. I made a purchase that came in the other day. Of course I got it off Amazon. It checks, it's a water tester. Designed for drinking water, hydroponic, aquariums, that kind of stuff. And it checks, checks for all kinds of stuff. So it, it'll tell, it'll give me a digital readout of the pH instead of having to use the pool strips conductivity, which I think that's helps tell how many. How much metal's in it. It'll do all kinds of stuff. I've only learned so far how to do one or two things with it, but I was like, Jeff would be proud. Because I already use water filters on my lines that are outside, this just lets me actually see that it works.

Jeff Blackmon:

All right. We got a couple questions.

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah. Actually ask if Dawn dish soap is okay to clean the wattles, do you prefer another cleaner?

Jeff Blackmon:

No, Dawn's fine. Yeah. And just make sure you rinse it really well. Don't get it too strong, don't get overzealous with your dawn. Yeah. But just make sure that you've got it rinsed really well. So there's no soap residue. The soap root is, residue is not gonna kill'em. It's not even gonna make'em sick. What's gonna happen is with some soap residue, you're gonna see some runny boop. And then you're gonna be all concerned that you got something else going on. And it's a, it just, as long as you get'em wrenched you're fine with pretty much any type of soap is fine. Yeah. I don't get carried away with a preference on soap.

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah. What, whatever you have you recently switched to Nibble water for wintertime? I saw most of them drinking from it. Should I remove their old drinkers now and force them to drink with a nipple water?

Jeff Blackmon:

I would not I'd give it at least another week. Joy don't, I know, don't be in a hurry. And even with winter coming in Ohio, similar climate as us once a day you could figure out a way to give them a large volume of water. Something like a rubber dish or a bowl or something. Where you bring'em warm water, around feeding time. My birds really enjoyed that. Even though they had, other sources, just the fact that it was warm warms'em up, right around feeding time. The, it was just a good thing to do. And I noticed in the winter if I could keep the water warm, up in that 50 to 60 degree range. They consumed a lot more of it, but when it getting down into the thirties. Like a cold drink with ice in it, then Yeah, I, it slows'em down.

Carey Blackmon:

If you're cold, you're probably not going to drink freezing cold water.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Carey Blackmon:

But I, I do, I did order some aquarium heaters to go in my water reservoirs to that have a minimum temp I wanna say of 50 or 60 something, one of those, which was perfect for me.'cause I figured, if I can keep it 60 degrees, that would probably, is it,

Jeff Blackmon:

is it gonna do your volume and your reservoir?

Carey Blackmon:

It's designed, the ones that I got is designed for a a hundred gallon aquarium. Okay. So when I go up to the 30 gallon drum. To use for the water, plus, I'm gonna say five-ish gallons of water in the line with it constantly circulating. It should still keep up with the temperature and keep it warm.

Jeff Blackmon:

So I wanna back up just for a second, and I'm not disagreeing with you, but when you talked about the black bucket, so you want, you don't want light getting in the summertime if you're going to use a darker color, it needs to be kept in the shade, right? Because if it's sitting in the direct sunlight. It's gonna gather radiant heat faster than a lighter color. Yep. And then I just diagnosed this, from the time I left the office till now someone contacted one of my feed mills and said, in June, all my hands quit laying right. And he sent pictures of his setup and he had 55 gallon black barrels. Sitting open in the sun on the back of his chicken tractor and yeah, middle of June, they all quit laying. I wonder what the temperature of that water was in North Carolina in June.

Carey Blackmon:

So I tested that. One day right after lunchtime, I had a bucket that I did not, it's not in use, and I did not put any ice in it. That water was almost a hundred degrees.

Jeff Blackmon:

Yeah. And you're gonna, it

Carey Blackmon:

was in the shade.

Jeff Blackmon:

You're gonna peak your temperatures, that would be a really good piece of information to share with people at some point. But if you set that black bucket in, it doesn't even have to be full sun, but if you put it in direct sun. And you wanna measure that at about 4:00 PM 3:34 PM to get your maximum temperature to see what it actually Oh yeah. It's gotta be a hundred. Yeah.'cause you're using your water should be 55, 60 degrees coming outta the tap. Depending on where you're at. I think it would be really interesting for people to know how much that water temperature can change in the course of a day. But anyway,

Carey Blackmon:

So what I can do is actually have a thermometer that's designed to go inside of a deep freeze, and the probe is waterproof. So what I can do is put it in and let it sit for a couple of days. It'll track the temperature inside of it. And we can see what that does.

Jeff Blackmon:

See here, I thought you were gonna tell me like, let's put a meat thermometer because all these fancy grills now that you can get this Bluetooth thing where you stick a meat probe in it.

Speaker:

Yeah. I don't

Jeff Blackmon:

know that'd work. And it'll just send the temperature right to your phone, wherever you are.

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah. Only on this system. It's made by Govi and I can tell the temperature. I got another deep freeze, so I got another thermometer and I haven't put it in yet, so I could stick it in the water, run that, and then hook it up to the, stick it in the freezer. Let's see, I live in Ontario, wind to Hz, drink their water. I expect frozen wattles more important to have fresh water in the morning or the afternoon.

Jeff Blackmon:

Actually, the first thing a hen does when she comes off the roost in the morning, she's got to have water, right? It is critical to have water. She's pretty dehydrated'cause she hasn't drank during that dark period while she was on the roost. And we're talking about winter, she's been without water for, 14, 16 hours, depending on how far up in Ontario you are. So first thing she's got to have is water. When she comes off the roost and she's going to eat right, and if there's food available, she's gonna eat, and then she's gonna drink some more because there's a low level of salt and it's supposed to be in the feed. So there's gonna be a little bit of salt in the feed. She's gonna want to, she also needs water in her crop to start softening and start the fermentation process. So she's gonna need water, before she eats and right after she eats. So whenever mealtime is, we're gonna have to make sure we have water available at that time as well. I am guessing RS does not have any power to her chicken coop to keep the wattles not frozen. But that would be a thing. And see that's where your recirculation system, I hope you're gonna tell people about it. And we're already about halfway through but the recirculation system with the tank heater in it shouldn't have a freezing issue, at all.

Carey Blackmon:

Yeah. And for me, definitely not. I may see the teens for about two weeks in the wintertime now up in Canada. I still don't think it would with the heater in it. Depends

Jeff Blackmon:

on how long the line is. How far is the run. Yeah. And that's when you think about having multiple runs, but

Carey Blackmon:

yeah. We already talked about, we've already talked about these bell drinkers. Those are nice. They have a high flow, good for groups. They gotta be level and you gotta keep'em clean. We've talked about nipple lines, buckets. That's the cleanest'cause they can't drop stuff in it while they're eating. No food, no litter. With the nipple lines that I have hanging. I used half inch PVC to make'em, and they can't even, they can't even light on'em. I have a string going right above them where they can't cup. Drinkers are nice, but boy, they like to break a lot unless you have the good ones. Continuous line systems, they're scalable. Low pressure filtration can be used with cups or nipples. Here's some examples. The stainless steel one on the bottom is a Turkey drinker. The yellow one is a chick drinker. The red one, in the middle is a chicken drinker. The black one technically is for small rabbits, but it also works well with chickens and the one that looks like a plus sign. Chickens use it, but that's what my quail use. Those are some different ones. And any of these, on the internet, the PVC pieces to put them in pipe, any of these will work with that. Also, with any of these, except for the Turkey one you can just reel. A hole a little smaller than it into the water line and screw it into it and use it. Now, the turbine ones, they're really high flow and the piece that goes through, if it bounces too much, that sucker sheep through your waterline, and you'll find it at the end. Learn that the hard way, and it'll free flow when it does it. These. These right here are the ones with a yellow piece in'em for the cups. Those are the ones that I used in my continuous waterline, because in the wintertime there's little water inside the actual cup. They have to pack on that yellow piece in order to get it to come through. So you know, that works. The cup. On the other side that has almost three inches wide. I put that on there because those are the ones you don't wanna buy though. Any they're cheap. All cups are not made the same. No. I tried probably 10, 15 different types of cups over the years. And once I bit the bullet and started buying the recoup cups, and I say bit the bullet,'cause them suckers are the most expensive ones out there, but there's a reason for that. They last,

Jeff Blackmon:

you get what you pay for.

Carey Blackmon:

You do. That's like the Cadillac of the cup world. I will say this to you when you're doing a, it's not

Jeff Blackmon:

just by reco. I mean there's other manufacturers that make a similar design for commercial use.

Speaker:

Yeah. Yeah.

Jeff Blackmon:

The one on the right is more for hobby farmers and it's meant to keep the price down and it's not made to take abuse. But the one on the left, you

Carey Blackmon:

don't, you don't want it in a grow out pen for sure. No,

Jeff Blackmon:

no. The one on the left, IC is a lot, in commercial, commercial scale, larger operations and

Carey Blackmon:

I say Renoco'cause people can get on Amazon and search for Renoco. But the company that actually makes those for everybody, I can't pronounce it. I have a person that I'm in contact with there'cause I order them in bulk from them. But yeah, they make'em for all kinds of different companies.

Jeff Blackmon:

So if you buy them in bulk, how much can you sell'em to me for?

Carey Blackmon:

Less than what Renta co sells'em for.

Jeff Blackmon:

That's not a number. Dang. You don't beat around the bush.

Carey Blackmon:

I'm, I don't have my price sheet in front of me, Joe. They're not expensive though. Even they getting a carton of them shipped over here is about 290 bucks. They're still not that it, if you buy. If you buy a hundred or more of them, they're about the same price as the cheap and cheap made ones. I do remember that off the top of my head. It's a couple bucks.

Jeff Blackmon:

It looks like you can easily disassemble it and clean out somewhere inside and, oh,

Carey Blackmon:

yeah. The red piece you can twist it, twist right off. You can collect them and throw'em in the dishwasher if you want to. That's easy to do and to clean the yellow piece really and truly, if you stick your finger in it and you've got an adequate amount of pressure, then the water coming out that line will clean out the cup because you know the, if you do like I did and build your line on a slant because you're putting it in a grow out pen and you're gonna have birds of different heights. Then sometimes the taller birds will be lazy and they'll go get it and they'll eat and they'll go straight to the water and you'll wind up with food in it and all that mess. But if you just stick your finger in it.

Alex:

Wow! Our time is up already, but we have more to cover on this important topic, so be sure to join us next Tuesday for Part-2 of Poultry Water Systems. Until then, keep learning, keep improving and above all--keep enjoying the birds you love.

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