Have you ever had to water a chicken? One of our customers, ChickenWaterer.com in Palo Alto, has an entire business built on keeping chickens properly hydrated. It's an important part of raising the birds because chicken eggs are over 80% water by weight. Its target market includes people who produce their own food, including backyard chicken owners like my neighbors down the street. My kids often come home with feathers (not eggs) in their pockets after visiting them.
General Manager Mark Delman is a big fan of our PTFE tape, which is used to seal pipe threads.
"It's used to ensure that the valves we use on our chicken watering devices do not leak. We use the Swagelok product because competitive PTFE products are too thin and are more difficult to apply. Your tape is more expensive, but the Swagelok tape is sooooo much better, it's worth it," he says.
If you visit his website at chickenwaterer.com, you'll see a product called the BriteTap waterer. Chickens drink from the two orange-red valves on the bottom. The upper section of the valve has an NPT thread and screws into the clear plastic conduit that forms the body of the waterer. The company wraps the threads with Swagelok PTFE tape two or three times before installing them to ensure a leak-tight seal. (While you are at the website, check out the recipes and chicken cartoons.)
Want to learn more about PTFE tape and other Swagelok sealants, leak detectors and lubricants? Just go to our website and get the the catalog.