I just bought the Little Giant 7 gallon plastic waterer for my coop. They're not exactly cheap, but I needed something a bit bigger for my ever-growing flock to tide us over the winter until we could get our rain barrels set up and an automatic waterer built for them.
With winter coming on, it's currently inside the coop so that my girls don't have to go outside every day if they don't like the weather. We're using the deep litter method inside our (summer 2011 built) 10x10 coop, it's our first time giving DL a whirl and we're very excited about it....
BUT... Less than 2 weeks after I get this LG waterer, I've had to completely remove all the DL twice due to the waterer leaking all over the place!! TWICE!!!
No easy feat to remove it either. It has to be done by wheelbarrow and all the litter moved to the other end of our 2-acres to the compost. Takes a long time! We've used a mix of shredded paper and several very large bags of compressed white pine shavings each time. We never expected to have to clean out the coop this often when we decided to utilize DL.
No matter what we've tried so far to keep it from leaking, it has failed. We've tried the half-turn per waterer instructions. We've tried a 1/4 turn. We've tried anything in between those... We've tried screwing the top on as tight as tight can be. We've only filled it to the lines indicated... and we've tried using less water to see if it made a difference. Nope.
Right now, it's sitting inside a 30 gal rubber stock tank, on top of bricks for easier access to the flock (they sit on the edges of the tank), so that when it leaks yet again and again, it doesn't end up all over the litter.
BTW - it's still leaking into the tank....
WTHeck am I doing wrong here? Did I just possibly buy a dud waterer? I haven't spotted any cracks in it and, trust me, I've really looked for them! Maybe I'm just having difficulties understanding the (what I thought were) simple instructions....
With winter coming on, it's currently inside the coop so that my girls don't have to go outside every day if they don't like the weather. We're using the deep litter method inside our (summer 2011 built) 10x10 coop, it's our first time giving DL a whirl and we're very excited about it....
BUT... Less than 2 weeks after I get this LG waterer, I've had to completely remove all the DL twice due to the waterer leaking all over the place!! TWICE!!!
No matter what we've tried so far to keep it from leaking, it has failed. We've tried the half-turn per waterer instructions. We've tried a 1/4 turn. We've tried anything in between those... We've tried screwing the top on as tight as tight can be. We've only filled it to the lines indicated... and we've tried using less water to see if it made a difference. Nope.
Right now, it's sitting inside a 30 gal rubber stock tank, on top of bricks for easier access to the flock (they sit on the edges of the tank), so that when it leaks yet again and again, it doesn't end up all over the litter.
BTW - it's still leaking into the tank....
WTHeck am I doing wrong here? Did I just possibly buy a dud waterer? I haven't spotted any cracks in it and, trust me, I've really looked for them! Maybe I'm just having difficulties understanding the (what I thought were) simple instructions....
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