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By Holly Cicchirillo, Arizona I’d like to share an idea that I discovered this year that may help others. Store-bought chicken waterers are expensive, and the ones with the plastic bases don’t always hold up to cold temperatures so well. I came up with an idea to make my own self-filling chicken waterer using empty cat litter jugs.

Take an empty, well-rinsed cat litter jug that has a snug fitting, screw-on cap, and drill a pencil-size hole 1″ above the base. Set it inside a water pan, fill with water, screw on the top, and you’ve got an instant self-filling chicken waterer. Instead of filling the water pan every day, I get up to three days before needing to refill, using my recycled litter jug.

The jug will last 6-12 months, as after a while the threads tend to lose their air-tight quality from being repeatedly screwed on and off. In the cold of winter, I simply moved the water pans and jugs inside the chicken buildings, where they resisted freezing more than if they’d been left outside.

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Originally published in the August/September 2007 issue of Backyard Poultry and regularly vetted for accuracy.

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