Chickens can’t poop on it or knock it over if it’s overhead!
When you go out to eat, the first thing the wait staff offers you is water. You can live 40 days without food but only four days without water. Your chickens won’t last that long. They need from a half-pint to a whole pint a day depending on the season. To keep your chickens happy, you need a reliable watering system that stays unfrozen, mosquito-free, sort of clean, and topped up when you’re busy or away. So when my wife, Chris, announced that she wanted chickens, I knew that as the “facilities manager” I would be responsible for setting up the coop and all the furnishings such as the waterer. I naively thought that reading a few books and employing the standard practices would suffice. But several authors all said the same thing about water: I would have to go out every day to clean and refill the waterer that the hens had pooped on or knocked over. My first thought was, “Hey, I don’t want to work for the chickens! Come on. I already work for my dog!”
Poop-Free Waterer