More Bird Brained Things! I have been making Della a non-fouling pigeon waterer. Given the huge number of people who are pigeon fanciers you would think such a thing would be widely available from pigeon suppliers but we have never been able to find one. I have made up two here out of some PVC guttering, a float valve and some hinges. I have used the metal gutter supports to sit them on.
The bottoms are easy enough (just glue and drill) , but the lid needs you to cut down the guttering slip the cut off piece inside and rejoin it with pop rivets. You also have to cut down the end caps. An angle grinder makes this easy. You can just lift it out for cleaning every now and then I have spaced the drinking holes 3″ apart which seems to work well..
I made the perch up from a piece of 3″ x 1″ treated pine and a length of 1/2″ dowel. Invisible here are the 2″ strip of aluminium flat bar (Bunnings) and galvanised gutter hanger it is sitting on. The hangers are screwed through the aluminium flat bar to the perch so that they fit tightly against the wire. Then you go inside and snip out the wire where the drinking holes are with a pair of side cutters. The perch is sitting out 3″ in the centre of the piece of wood. Next one I will place the perch nearer the bottom of the wood for greater comfort. The birds took to it right away – which is unusual for pigeons who are usually desperately wary of novel things.
I have used a Pressure Reducer to decrease the chance that the hose will burst:
Pope brand Poly Pressure Reducer available Bunnings A$10.24 (April 2018). They come in 100 and 300 kPa
See Also:
http://www.theultralighthiker.com/self-cleaning-pet-water-bowl/
