Saddle Style Poultry Water Nipples

With the threat of frost pretty much gone I decided to reconnect my PVC chicken waterer.  Much to my dismay it leaked.

Two of the poultry nipples were leaking.  One of them wasn't too bad, but the other was.  It looked like the silicone around it gave up and wasn't holding anymore.  I've had this problem before.

This style of poultry nipple isn't meant for PVC pipe.  The silicone helped, but didn't last through the winter.

I didn't want to deal with fixing it only to have it fail again.  So I ordered some saddle style poultry nipples that are made specifically for 3/4" PVC pipe.

The project was pretty straight forward.  I cut a new piece of PVC pipe to the same length as the old one and then held the two pipes together with clamps.  Then I drilled 5/16" holes in the new pipe using the poultry nipples in the old pipe for reference.

Then I snapped the new saddle style nipples into the new pipe.

The last step was to re-attach the pipe to the chicken coop and connect the water.

There were no leaks.  If you're going to use PVC pipe to water chickens I'd highly recommend these poultry nipples over the ones I originally used.  The only downside is price.  These were ~$14 for 5 of them.  The last ones I got were ~$8 for 10.  That's quite a difference.  It's the reason I bought the ones I did the first time.  I've learned from experience that it wasn't worth it.