What would you do, water freezing?

eleaserek said:

I have a three gallon bucket with two horizontal nipples. I have a small (I think it's for one gallon) fish tank heater with suction cups placed right I between the nipples. It was doing perfect until it got down to 5F last night (I'm in MT.) The center of the bucket was still thawed, but the top and edges had about 1/2" ice. The nipples themselves were also frozen... So broke the ice and only filled it half full, hoping the tiny heater would keep a smaller amount of water thawed better.
The high today was 16F and it's been fine all day. The low tonight is 3F, so we will see in the morning!

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Thanks for responding. Do your nipples stay thawed?

The one gallon rubber bowls that I use are heavy enough, and when filled with water, they are pretty sturdy for chickens. As with any waterer, I always make sure there are 2 of them inside the coop and more outside, in case something strange happens. The heated dog bowls are great--too bad they don't have a battery powdered one that would only keep the bowl above freezing.

Eggcessive said:

The heated dog bowls are great--too bad they don't have a battery powdered one that would only keep the bowl above freezing.

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You could run them off batteries, but it's impractical...

A decent deep cell marine battery (200 Amp/Hour) with a 12v-110v power inverter should power a 50W heater for about a day before going dead... So if you had two batteries and didn't mind carrying them back and forth from the coop and swapping them out every day for the other one you carried back to the house to charge the previous day it could work... Even more impractical as the wattage increases and the number of batteries increase, for example for a 150W heater you would need 6 batteries swapping out 3 every day for charged ones... At that point the cost to have a power line buried or strung overhead is likely more cost effective...

Hi from Colorado. This will be our second winter with horizontal nipple bucket waters with bucket heaters. Last year they withstood -15 without freezing, so we were happy about that. We do not keep water in the coop. I do notice some leaking but no freezing as yet and since it is kept in the run, I have let it be for now. Here are a few shots of our set up in case people want further details.



K & H Bucket heaters, for plastic or metal, submersible or they can float. They have a built in thermostat that turns them off when the temp is warm and they kick on when it gets below a certain temp. Sorry don't remember what those temps are, we love this system and makes it super easy to maintain clean unfrozen water for your flock.

lazy gardener said:

Thanks for responding.  Do your nipples stay thawed?  

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Sadly no, they were frozen I think I'm going to look into that bucket heater!

Right now we are using a bucket with vertical nipples. My thinking was that they would stay thawed best because there's less distance between them and the heater. I'm using a bucket heater that sinks so it's right above the nipples.

However, I've run into a different problem...my birds are soaking themselves while drinking. I'm wondering how the horizontal cups would do for freezing....but our temps in Ontario get much colder...down to -40C without wind chill.

COChix said:

Hi from Colorado. This will be our second winter with horizontal nipple bucket waters with bucket heaters. Last year they withstood -15 without freezing, so we were happy about that. We do not keep water in the coop. I do notice some leaking but no freezing as yet and since it is kept in the run, I have let it be for now. Here are a few shots of our set up in case people want further details.

K & H Bucket heaters, for plastic or metal, submersible or they can float. They have a built in thermostat that turns them off when the temp is warm and they kick on when it gets below a certain temp. Sorry don't remember what those temps are, we love this system and makes it super easy to maintain clean unfrozen water for your flock.

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The cups freeze.

To keep the black pans from tipping and it even insulates them somewhat....a person could place a heated brick or two under the pans even...but I use this setup all the warmer months as my communal waterer for dogs and chickens and it keeps the water cool in the summer and liquid even in the 30s but won't keep from getting ice on the top if it gets consistently below that both night and day....




The pan fits snugly into the tire, so it can't be tipped and they can stand on the tire to drink. This keeps the water out of bedding also, so my water stays cleaner and cooler in summer and doesn't freeze much at all until temps get pretty low on a consistent basis. By then I switch over to heated waterers for both sets of animals.

One could place a hot rock or two under that and the tire would insulate it well and keep it warmer longer.

My husband just made a 'water heater' to keep in the coop. The base is a patio brick. It has a light fixture that is attaches with construction adhesive to the patio paver. Surrounding the light fixture is half of a cement block, also attached to the patio paver with construction adhesive. We put a 40 watt bulb in the outlet and plugged it in to a temperature regulated outlet plug which turns on at 35 degrees and turns off at 40 degrees. So far so good. The water hasn't frozen I the past couple of nights. It cost just under $25 to build...half the price of the one I was going to buy. Here is a few pics below.