The Chicken Waterinator

I want to tell you about the lowest point of my Evil career.

It was not the time the self-destruct went off early. It was not the incident with the magnetic-inator and all the silverware. It was not even the weekend my nemesis foiled three separate plans before noon on a Saturday. No. The lowest point was standing in a brooder at 6 AM, for the fourth time before breakfast, cleaning chicken water.

Again.

The Problem (A Tragedy in Several Acts)

Here is what happens, every single time, with perfect, maddening consistency: I clean the water. I put it back. A chicken — and I want to be very clear that I say this with the full weight of a man who has dedicated his life to Evil — a chicken looks directly at the clean water, and kicks a pile of bedding straight into it. Not accidentally. Deliberately. With what I can only describe as intent.

Then another chicken does it. Then they all do it. Then they stand around looking at the contaminated water like it is my fault somehow.

They are, and I say this as a scientist, fowl creatures.

I was cleaning that water approximately one hundred times a day. One hundred. I have a Tri-State Area to take over and I am spending my mornings as a chicken water custodian. Something had to be done. Something Evil. Something ingenious.

Something involving nipples.

The Solution (A Triumph of Evil Engineering)

Chicken nipples. That is what they are called. They are a real product. I did not name them. I ordered a 50-pack from Amazon and I am not going to pretend that typing that into a search bar did not give me a moment’s pause. But science demands we push past awkwardness, and so I pushed.

The concept is elegant: a small spring-loaded valve that chickens peck at to release water, mounted in the bottom of a container. No open surface for bedding to land in. No spillage. No tiny feathered saboteurs contaminating everything the moment your back is turned. The water stays clean because the chickens cannot reach it until they actually want to drink it.

Genius. Pure, simple, poultry-proof genius.

For the containers, I repurposed a couple of old fast food drink cups — large size, obviously, because I do not do things halfway — drilled the nipples into the bottom, and had myself a pair of perfectly brooder-sized Chicken Waterinators at essentially zero additional cost. Charlene’s alimony checks are generous, but there is no reason to spend money I do not have to.

Behold the Results

No mess. No contamination. No more 6 AM water custodian duty. The chickens peck the nipples, water comes out, they drink it, and then they go about their day without destroying anything. It is the most cooperative they have ever been, and it took removing all opportunity for chaos to achieve it.

I have learned something about chickens. I have also, perhaps, learned something about people. But mostly chickens.

The Chicken Waterinator: my most immediately gratifying Inator to date. The Tri-State Area takeover can wait another day. I slept in until 7.

– Doof, Evil Scientist and Reluctant Poultry Enthusiast, Tri-State Area