January 19, 2007
New Chicken Waterer
Saturday and the rounds include a trip to the feed store for a new manual waterer for the chicken yard. We have a nice automatic waterer, but the supply to it freezes and then the birds are without water until it warms up. With this manual waterer we can fill it and leave it, dumping in more warm water if it ices up and when we move the chicken tractor it will be as portable as the rest of the setup.
Our old metal waterer lasted 14 years but sprang a leak when it rusted through where it sat on the ground, We looked at plastic waterers today at the store, but as one of my neighbors said "I've outlived anything made out of plastic I ever bought."
If breakability is an issue, plastic has its place. I don't quibble with shampoo bottles made of plastic. Glass is great, it's recyclable endlessly but its also breakable. For most stuff I hate plastic. It gets used once, goes to the landfill and never breaks down. Bleah.
Reduce, reuse, recycle.

At least the new steel water dispenser can be recycled when it springs a leak, sometime in 2022.