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I love the fact that I live in a place that when I go in to a farm supply store and kindly ask the unsupecting man at the counter where they keep the pig nipples and he quickly responds with "follow me". Farmer Steve's jaw drops as I say this and he quickly distances himself from me, giving me one of those looks.
Yeah, pig nipples. You see, I came up with a better way to water the piglets. Last year we struggled constantly with keeping their water bucket full of water and not upside down in a puddle of mud. No matter what we tried, those pesky critters kept turning it upside down, or spent their afternoon lounging in it. I did some research and found that the larger pig farms use these kind of check valves connected to a water line that the pigs walk up to, press the tip, and water dribbles out. I mentioned the design to Farmer Steve, he finished the engineering so it would work in real life. Only problem, we needed the "pig nipples".
When we arrived at Tractor Supply Company I could not remember for the life of me what they were called. So, when the nice young man asked if he could help me find something, I blurted the first thing that came to mind..."where do you keep the 'pig nipples'?" To my delight, he smiled and asked me to follow him. Sure enough he knew exactly what I was asking for. Now we have some really nice shiny pig nipples so our little piggies do not get thirsty this summer.
Here is a full image of the final design. The green part is a quick connect that will attach to a hose. Then there is steel pipe and various fittings that connect to the nipples. The two pipe clamps will connect the entire set up to a post. By using these clamps we will be able to raise this nipple contraption as the pigs get older so they will be less likely to use it as a scratching post. That is the plan. Check back in a few weeks to see if this whole thing works. Took about 20 minutes to make and ten dollars in parts.
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