Manual fonts, bell drinkers and nipple lines with cups compared for Ghanaian farms: hygiene, wet litter, cost, labour, water pressure needs and maintenance.
Halaal Farms Ghana team4 October 2026 · 13 min read
By mid-afternoon the water in an open drinker holds litter, feed dust, a few droppings and whatever has come off the beak and nostrils of every bird that drank there since morning. A nipple line delivers water that no bird has stood in. That difference is the centre of the choice between drinker types, but it is not all of it. Nipples need filtered water, steady low pressure and a level line, and a badly run nipple system can leave a flock thirstier than a row of hand-filled fonts. Three systems are in common use on Ghanaian farms, and each one is the right answer somewhere.
A font is a plastic jar or bucket turned upside down on a shallow base. Air pressure holds the water in the jar and lets it out into the base as the birds drink the level down. Chick fonts hold 1 to 4 litres, and adult fonts 8 to 12 litres.
For day-old chicks, put out at least two chick fonts for each box of 50, so that timid chicks have somewhere to go. For grown birds, plan one large font for every 20 to 25 birds and refill at least twice a day. From the second week, stand fonts on a block or a wire platform so that the lip is at the height of the birds' backs. A font sitting on the litter is full of litter within the hour.
Fonts need no plumbing, no pressure and no electricity. They work in any building and through any power cut. You can see exactly how much the flock drank, and measuring out a vaccine or vitamin is simple. For a small flock, a brooding pen or a sick pen they are often all that is needed.
Their cost is labour. A thousand broilers near sale weight drink 300 to 400 litres a day in mild weather and can pass 500 litres in the heat. With fonts, all of it is carried by hand, and 45 or so fonts have to be emptied, scrubbed and refilled at least twice daily. The other weakness is timing. Fonts run dry in the afternoon, when the birds need water most and the farm is at its quietest.
A bell drinker is a plastic dome hung from the roof on a cord. Water runs down the outside of the dome into a channel round its rim. A spring valve at the top shuts when the weight of water in the channel reaches the set level and opens again as birds drink it down. Each bell is fed through a thin hose from a low-pressure pipe, and a ballast bottle of water or sand inside the dome keeps it from swinging.
Breeder manuals give a minimum of about eight 40 cm bells for 1,000 broilers. In open-sided houses in Ghana's heat that is too few. Plan one bell for every 70 to 100 birds, using the lower figure in the hot months and for heavy birds.
Two settings matter. Hang the bell so that the rim is level with the birds' backs, and raise it as they grow. Keep the water deep enough for small chicks to drink easily in the first week or so, then reduce it to about a centimetre in the channel. Deep water in a bell is splashed out every time a bird bumps it.
Bell drinkers never run dry while the tank has water, birds drink from them in a natural way, and they are cheaper than nipple lines. But the water is still open. Each bell has to be tipped out and scrubbed every day. Valves stick, and a valve stuck open floods the litter overnight while a valve stuck shut leaves a dry drinker that nobody notices until the birds crowd the next one.
A nipple line is a pipe hung along the house with small valves on its underside. Each valve has a steel pin. When a bird pushes the pin, water runs down it into the beak. Nothing is open to the air between the tank and the bird.
Nipples differ. Side-action types release water when the pin is pushed from any direction, which suits chicks and broilers. Vertical-action types open only when the pin is pushed upward and are common in layer cages. Flow ratings differ as well, with higher-flow nipples made for broilers.
A drip cup is a small cup hanging below each nipple. It catches drips and the water birds let fall, so the litter stays drier, and the bead of water in it helps new chicks find the line. A cup that stands full is a warning: either the nipple above it is leaking or the pressure is too high.
Allow one nipple for every 10 to 12 broilers, and nearer 10 in hot weather or for heavy birds. Nipples are usually spaced 20 to 25 cm apart, so a 12 m line carries 50 to 60 of them and serves 500 to 600 birds. In cages, each hen should be able to reach two nipples.
On day one, set the pins at the chicks' eye level. From the second or third day, raise the line so that chicks reach up at about 45 degrees. As the birds grow, keep raising it so that they stretch the neck upward to drink, with both feet flat on the floor. A bird should never have to stoop to a nipple. When it drinks with its head level or lowered, water runs out of the side of the beak and onto the litter. Broilers grow so fast that the line needs raising every day or two.
Water pressure from a tank depends only on height. Each metre of height between the water level in the tank and the drinker gives about 0.1 bar. A tank on a two-metre stand delivers about 0.2 bar at floor level, whatever its size.
Fonts need no pressure at all.
Bell drinkers are built for low pressure, the kind supplied by a tank raised a couple of metres above them. Check the range printed on the maker's leaflet. A pump, the mains or a large tank on a tall tower can overpower the valves. The answer is a small header tank with a float valve placed between the main supply and the drinkers.
Nipple lines run at very low pressure, and the pressure has to be adjustable. Each line starts with a regulator and a clear upright tube. The height of the water standing in that tube, measured in centimetres, is the pressure at the nipples. For day-old chicks it is set low, so that a bead of water hangs on each pin and the lightest touch releases it. It is then raised in steps as the birds grow, following the maker's chart. Small farm kits often use a little tank with a float valve mounted just above the line in place of a regulator, and moving the tank up or down changes the pressure.
Pressure set too low makes birds work for too little water. They drink less, then eat less, and growth falls. Pressure set too high makes nipples drip and wets the litter. To check, hold a cup under a nipple at the far end of the line, keep the pin pushed open for one minute and measure what you catch. A widely quoted rule of thumb for broilers is about 7 ml a minute for each week of age, plus 20, which gives 48 ml a minute at four weeks. Where the maker gives a figure, use that.
Two more conditions apply. The line must be level from end to end, or one end gets more pressure than the other and air collects at the high points. Hang it on adjustable cords and level it with a spirit level. And the water must pass through a filter before the regulator, because sand, rust and iron deposits from boreholes, wells and tankers lodge in the nipples.
Open water is shared water. Whatever one bird leaves in a font or bell, the next bird swallows, and that is a direct route for gut and respiratory infections to pass through a pen. Warm water with feed and droppings in it also grows bacteria quickly. The only defence is to empty and scrub open drinkers every day. Topping up is not cleaning.
A nipple line removes that route. It does not make the water clean if it was dirty at the source, and it is not self-cleaning. A slimy film grows on the inside of the pipe, fastest when the water is warm and slow-moving during brooding and after vitamins, sugars or other products have been given through the line. You cannot see it, so it is easy to forget. Lines need flushing with clean water after every product, and proper cleaning between flocks. Source water quality, line cleaning and chlorination are covered in water for poultry: how much, how clean, how cool.
Every drinking system wets the litter in its own pattern, and the pattern tells you the cause.
Whatever the cause, fork out wet litter the day you see it and replace it with dry material, then correct the fault. Wet litter makes ammonia, burns footpads and gives coccidiosis the damp conditions it needs. The floor itself is dealt with in our guide to litter management.
| Manual fonts | Bell drinkers | Nipple lines with cups | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Purchase cost per bird | Lowest | Moderate | Highest |
| Other equipment | Buckets, spare fonts | Raised tank, pipe, hoses | Tank, filter, regulator, level suspension |
| Daily labour | High: carry, refill, wash | Moderate: scrub each bell | Low: check, adjust, flush |
| Cleanliness of water | Poor unless washed often | Fair with daily scrubbing | Good if lines are flushed |
| Litter | Wet patches common | Wet rings common | Driest when set correctly |
| Pressure needed | None | Low and steady | Low, steady and adjustable |
| Typical failure | Dry in the afternoon | Valve sticks open or shut | Blocked or dripping nipples, air in the line |
| Skill to run | Least | Some | Most |
To compare them for your own farm, price the full system, including everything that feeds the drinkers. Count the units from the bird numbers above, add the tank, stand, pipe, filter and fittings, and divide the total by the years you expect the equipment to last. Then add the daily labour: time the watering round for three days and multiply by the wage. Fonts usually win the first sum and lose the second. The poultry profit calculator helps you see what the difference means over a batch.
| When | Fonts | Bells | Nipple lines |
|---|---|---|---|
| Every day | Empty, scrub, rinse, refill at least twice | Tip out, brush the channel, check water depth and height | Walk the line, trigger nipples at the far end, look for drips and full cups, adjust height |
| Every week | Check for cracks and loose bases | Check valves, hoses and ballast; clean the tank strainer | Flush through the end valve, clean the filter, check the pressure tube |
| After anything is given in the water | Rinse | Rinse the tank and each bell | Flush with clean water until it runs clear |
| Between flocks | Wash, disinfect, dry in the sun | Take valves apart, wash, disinfect | Clean with a line-cleaning product as its label directs, flush, then trigger every nipple |
The between-flock work is one part of the full clean-out described in cleaning and disinfecting a poultry house between batches.
Water intake can double in hot weather. Open water lets a hot bird take large gulps and wet its wattles, which is one reason some farms keep a few bell drinkers hanging as a reserve in the hottest months. Nipple lines cope if there are enough nipples and the pressure has been raised to match the birds' age. Water standing in a pipe inside a hot house warms up, so open the end valve in the early afternoon and flush the line until cooler water arrives from the tank. Keep the tank itself in shade.
Fonts are the easiest system for water vaccination, because you mix a measured volume and can see it drunk. With bells, empty the channels and dose through the header tank. With nipples, raise the lines for the period without water, then run the vaccine solution through until the coloured dye shows at the end valve of every line before lowering them. In all three, no trace of disinfectant or chlorine should be in the water or the drinkers. The method is set out in how to vaccinate chickens correctly. Chicks from Halaal Farms Ghana are vaccinated at the hatchery before they leave, so ask what your batch has had, and your vet can then tell you which vaccinations remain to be given on the farm.
Pullets reared on fonts or bells and then moved to cages with nipples may stand beside the line and not drink for a day or more. They lose weight, and the start of lay is set back. If you buy point-of-lay pullets, ask what drinker they were reared on. On arrival, tap the nipples so that a drop hangs on every pin, keep the house well lit, and leave a few open drinkers in place for the first days. Do the same for day-old chicks started on nipples: lower the line to eye level and keep chick fonts in the brooding area for the first three or four days. The rest of the first-week setup is in our chick brooding guide.
Very small birds need extra care with open water. Guinea keets and quail chicks can get soaked and chilled, or drown, in an ordinary chick font. Use fonts with a narrow drinking lip and put clean pebbles or marbles in the base for the first week. That applies to any keets, poults or quail chicks you bring in.
Whichever you choose, the water must be in the house before the birds are. Fill the drinkers a few hours before the chicks arrive, so that the water is at room temperature and the first thing a travelled chick finds is a drink. When you order broiler chicks or other birds from Halaal Farms Ghana, the hatch date and delivery are confirmed before you pay, so you know which morning to fill them. For advice on drinkers for your flock, use the order form or call 024 915 1503.
Allow one nipple for every 10 to 12 broilers, and nearer 10 in hot weather or for heavy birds, so 500 broilers need about 45 to 50 nipples. With nipples spaced 20 to 25 cm apart, that is 10 to 12 metres of line. Split it into two parallel lines so that no bird has to walk more than about three metres to reach water.
The usual causes are pressure set too high for the age of the birds, a line hung too low so that birds drink from the side and let water run off the beak, grit holding a nipple open, or a line that is not level. Lower the pressure a step, raise the line, flush it through and replace any nipple that keeps dripping. Drip cups catch much of the remainder.
Only if the pressure reaching the drinkers is inside the range the valve is made for. A tank on a tall tower, a pump or mains pressure can force the valves open and flood the litter overnight. The safe arrangement is a small header tank with a float valve, set a couple of metres above the drinkers, which takes water from the main supply and feeds the bells gently.
They remove one route of spread, because birds no longer share a pool of water that carries droppings, feed and discharge from beaks and nostrils. Drier litter under a well-set line also means less ammonia and less pressure from coccidiosis. Nipples do not replace vaccination or clean source water, and a line that is never flushed grows slime inside that can carry bacteria to every bird.
Written by the Halaal Farms Ghana team. We hatch and import day-old chicks at Opeikuma, Kasoa, and deliver to all 16 regions. This article is general guidance for farmers. For diagnosis and treatment of sick birds, speak to a vet or your district veterinary office.
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