Hensdeep Mystery

Some while ago (I’d be more specific if I could, but I think it was over two winters ago), I changed the girls’ watering system from a mounted length of PVC pipe, nipple waterers, and a five gallon bucket to a set of cup waterers in a larger tank.

Everything chicken water related for the past two years has been great and easy to take care of until this morning when Steve when out to “scratch the girls” and discovered that the tank was empty.  So we dragged a hose out there and started to refill the tank while I walked around it looking for where the leak was, because we’d filled it right before we left for Christmas and it was obvious there was a leak somewhere.

I found the leak alright; one of the cups was missing! Not only the orange cup itself, but the black insert piece that goes into the tank was gone and the only thing left was the hole that I’d drilled into the tank to install the cup. 

So now I’m scratching my head, trying to figure out what they did to knock it out, and more importantly, where the hell it went. You’d think a fiery-orange cup waterer would be an easy thing to spot, but it was nowhere to be found. I even started kicking over the bedding to see if they’d managed to bury it, but still couldn’t locate it.  I guess I’ll find it next spring when I muck out Hensdeep.

Unless they ate it, of course.