Sonny Hegarty

Jay Angler wrote:The basic principle is much like one that we use. However, Hubby tried building a home-made one years ago, and if the container you use isn't rigid enough that it maintains its shape under pressure, the container will collapse and you'll likely have a mess, (in our case in the chicken coop, so I can't recommend highly enough that you test your prototype in a spot that will enjoy a drink!)

With our commercial version, essentially, as the chickens +/- gravity, empty the water, pressure builds up in the container until it sucks air in through the out valve making a "glug, glug" noise that tells me everything's working properly. However, that means that the system is also capable of sucking in some of the dirty water. So even if you use this to try to save some time, if you can't fairly easily disassemble it for cleaning,  you may find it gets amazingly scuzzy pretty fast. We add a little hydrogen peroxide to the ones we use for our meat birds as that helps.

That said, I don't think Hubby put a shut-off right where the hose entered the container (he'd used a new plastic gas can). That might help a lot. I'd still be looking for a container that was quite thick plastic and more of a round shape than rectangular if we were to try another diy version.

thank you for the tips and good advice. the chicken pen has a worm bin inside the mulch to help compost and feed the chickens so not too worried about the water spilling. the tap at the bottom would be open while its in operation but closed to fill it up so theres still chance of bad stuff goin back inside

Juniper Zen wrote:If your goal is a system with a hose continually available to refill water, I think you'll like the one described here:
https://permies.com/t/163895/Infinite-Chicken-Water-Basic-float
Also lots of ideas here:
https://permies.com/t/156691/chicken-waterers

really neat idea thank you

hey thank you for the quick replies. im planning to upgrade our chicken pen. closer and less work carrying water. im attempting a deep mulch system as i collect a lot of garden waste from my work. any info is really appreciated thank you!

see if this works?

i want to use the olla watering technique but i cant find any vessels that are adequate. we have a lot of clay here so maybe i should learn how to use it 🤔

Melissa Ferrin thank you for sharing! really enjoy learning how other countries with similar climates to here deal with the long dry season and irrigation techniques. gracias

nice to hear from someone local on permies. we are on the outskirts of cutar closer to embalse la vinuela. its mostly olive secano, they do still grow grapes closer to cutar but more and more they are converting the land into irrigated avocado and mango crops

hi Abraham, we live in the mountains of Velez Malaga in a municipal called Cutar

thank you for the decent reply it is encouraging. i started vermicomposting at the beginning of last summer and yea i dont think they liked the heat.
(we live in spain) they're in an old metal wheel barrow under a tree. they've been a lot more productive in these colder months. ive also been placing makeshift inground worm bins in the garden. they can then escape the heat of the day and come back at night, so im thinking they've also got all the planting area of the 3 pot plant to hide and rehydrate near the center terracotta pot during hotter times. thanks again. will give it try and let you know

hi. new here. ive used this website for referencing in the past but just getting into permaculture and happy to find out that im familiar with this forum. me, my partner and our one and a half year old daughter live with my mother in the south of spain. my parents were travellers in the UK, they would move from place to place with their horses, wagons, goats and chikens they moved to spain in the early 90's with a community of people. they settled and bought properties in the same area. our land is around 1500m2 including the house, which is mostly original, built over 200 years ago using natural materials. the roof has been replaced, part of it using old traditional techniques and more recent parts using concrete. the land is south west facing, quite steep and a lot of clay. we have 4 big olives with other little ones dotted around, 3 almonds and some little young carob trees. we live just below a nature reserve. there is water from the grid but no electricity so we use solar. the electricity posts are getting nearer but im happy with our solar system, be it only a small one. we actually have two solar systems. one for the original house where my mother lives and a seperate one for our place. my mum lives in the original old house and we live in a self built extension. from the outside it looks like an old lorry box for storage but built off the lorry box is a bedroom, bathroom and kitchen/living room. we built using as much reclaimed materials as we could find and the rest is made with concrete, which i dont really like but its what ive been shown. for the kitchen and bathroom we had a 9 month time schedule (due to our baby being born) so I decided on concrete for ease and speed. i would like to have used clay thinking back on it since its natural and so readily available. our neighbours are building a cob and pallet house! weve always had a little garden but it gets hard in the summer.  I'd like to learn more about growing food and how to use the land (thats conveniently below the house) for caching and storing the rain if it ever comes!
we have a pig as a pet and I use her manure. we recently got chickens again. i do strimming and plan on giving the cut grass to the chikens in the dry season and try a hot compost when the grass is green in late spring. I do vermicompost. we love our worms, they do amazing stuff. sory for the long introduction. I've been on permies quite a bit recently learning lots. thank you for this website. feel I've probably got more to say but going to leave it here for now.