Chickens And Water

Water is absolutely essential for your hen’s health- an egg is made up of 65% water – so you must give your chicken’s access to fresh water.

Unfortunately, you’ll soon discover that chickens do not make much of an effort to keep their water supply clean, and will foul it with droppings or dirt they scratch up if it is left at ground level.

Once the water is dirty, they tend not to drink  from it, so a solution is to raise the water dish or feeder above ground level and place it near to the entrance to the coop, so they can easily access it.

Some people do this by hanging the drinker and feeder from something so it is at your hens shoulder height – we just use upside down terracotta pots with the drinker and feeder placed on top.

You’ll also notice that even if you do this that their water will still get somewhat dirty.

What happens is that when they drink–their beaks get wet. They then peck at something in the soil, go back and have a few more sips to wash whatever it was they managed to get and in the process deposit the soil that stuck to their beak!

So the solution is to invested in a few plastic gravity feed drinkers which should be scattered about the garden or run area, so there is always the option of a clean source of water.