Winter water?

Its a valid point that wells do go dry during severe droughts and are very dependent on rain water. I hadn't realized some states were more effected than others. So move to Michigan! We are surrounded by the 5 great lakes. Not funny eh?

Our Roost said:

    Geesh! Hard to believe you cannot collect rain water in a barrel to water plants, gardens and use for whatever. That's a real deterrent. I use mine almost all year round.  I wrapped Pvc lines and never thought rain barrel would freeze with that much water in it, But it froze solid! We had miniature horses at that time and the horse trough had a floating heating element to keep water from freezing. Something of this nature could be used with water barrel if thought out right. I also purchased heated electrical lines and strung the length of PVC along with insulated pipe wrap to keep water in pipes from freezing. Well,- the water exposed from the nipplers still froze! Any open water exposed to the elements stand a chance of freezing. So, the adventure can be difficult if not thought out thoroughly. A 2 gallon heated dog dish bucket has potential. I think nipplers could be threaded and tapped in the side of bucket. The side wall of the bucket is pretty thick. There are a variety of nipplers offered to suit the purpose. Good luck.

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I think the rain collection thing has to do with Colorado leasing its water; to keep any precipitation from its normal runoff pattern is considered theft. Redirecting water, say from a house foundation, may be OK, but I wouldn't want to argue about it if I didn't have to.

One of my first thoughts about winter watering was to heat a large water vessel and gravity feed the water into a heated automatic watering fount. Everything went well until the water feed tube froze solid, and no matter how much I insulated it, I could not prevent this, short of wrapping it in heated cable. That is when I discovered horizontal nipples. Unlike the vertical drippers, these are not prone to freezing shut, and they can set flat on something like a tin can heater - or just a small stand or cinder block. I am willing to swear by them for use in Colorado. I thought about mounting some nipples in a heated dog bowl, but if the seal ever broke, water could conceivably leak into the electricals, and I would worry. So I am back to the polyethylene barrels. I have had good luck with the 250 watt bucket heaters in large vessels like rain barrels. (And there are 500 W models available, too). They rest on the bottom of the barrel and keep the lower portion of the barrel water liquid in even the coldest weather here, and the cord is long enough to extend all the way to and out the top. Making a stand for this big a water container and making it stable and untippable is probably the hardest part of the whole installation. Making a hole in the top for the heater doesn't bother me, and I'm sure I could make or find some sort of plug to keep debris out. Were I to have learned anything from previous bucket waterers, I would know that chickens like to perch and poop on top of their waterers, so this is a major concern for me. Fact is, it's hard to keep the tops clean and the poop from dropping and seeping into the water around holes, plugged and unplugged. So I need to make - or buy - a durable water proof cover that can be secured over the top and easily removed for filling and cleaning. Hopefully it could be a chicken roost deterrent, as well. Cleaning this barrel will be difficult. Perhaps I can merely rinse, or pressure wash, and sterilize it, then inoculate the drinking water with raw ACV. I have friend who uses DE regularly in her chick's water to help control worms and parasites, and this might be a good option, too. This cannot/mustnot be much more difficult than drilling a couple of holes and tossing in a bucket heater. Sign me Neolithic.

bruceha2000 said:

Colorado has some "interesting" water rights laws. It is a LOT murky to me (never lived in CO) but I think generally speaking, you can't take rain water off your roof and use it because you are "stealing" it from the rightful owner - someone who has a well who knows where (and has been using it who knows how long but before 'your house' was built) that would be fed by that rainwater if you hadn't pilfered it.

http://www.waterinfo.org/rights.html

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That's interesting and it makes a twisted kind of sense. I suppose it means, too, that if you have water rights, you yourself can have rain collecting barrels? I'm also supposing that someday it will be illegal to compost, because, at some point in the future, it will constitute a theft of someone's mineral rights.

In truth, this subject is a can of worms, and I haven't much thought about it. BUT, having mentioned it, my dandruff is now rattled. Yes, Colorado is practically arid, and wells do run dry. But it's not necessarily from just drought or from people pilfering precipitation. Period.

There are weird things happening to our water around my home. A lake appears, unwanted, in my neighbor's back yard, from time to time and unannounced, and the ponds down the road just seem to dry up, for no apparent meteorological reason at all. Our city water has had persistent problems with treated water tasting like algae, and wells are not an option. My basement flooded last year for the first time in decades (and I am on "high" ground), and the coop did, too. I reconditioned the sump in the basement, and am digging a dry well out by the coop (probably illegal, but I'm just going to redirect the water to drier ground).

One of the things I learned from recent flooding around here, is that water is diverted all over the place, through water control systems I never heard about. Water is a basic requirement for survival, and like most everything, I have little say about it, or even a casual understanding of how its management works.

What is certain is that if you control a person's water supply, you control his life. The rain barrel law just reminds of that.

Our Roost said:

Its a valid point that wells do go dry during severe droughts and are very dependent on rain water. I hadn't realized some states were more effected than others. So move to Michigan! We are surrounded by the 5 great lakes. Not funny eh?

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I think you are pushing it a bit there. Only 4 of the lakes touch Michigan, Lake Ontario is 100 miles away so it doesn't count That cuts your "local water" down to a couple bazillion gazillion gallons!

coop410silkies said:

That's interesting and it makes a twisted kind of sense. I suppose it means, too, that if you have water rights, you yourself can have rain collecting barrels? I'm also supposing that someday it will be illegal to compost, because, at some point in the future, it will constitute a theft of someone's mineral rights.

In truth, this subject is a can of worms, and I haven't much thought about it. BUT, having mentioned it, my dandruff is now rattled. Yes, Colorado is practically arid, and wells do run dry. But it's not necessarily from just drought or from people pilfering precipitation. Period.

There are weird things happening to our water around my home. A lake appears, unwanted, in my neighbor's back yard, from time to time and unannounced, and the ponds down the road just seem to dry up, for no apparent meteorological reason at all. Our city water has had persistent problems with treated water tasting like algae, and wells are not an option. My basement flooded last year for the first time in decades (and I am on "high" ground), and the coop did, too. I reconditioned the sump in the basement, and am digging a dry well out by the coop (probably illegal, but I'm just going to redirect the water to drier ground).

One of the things I learned from recent flooding around here, is that water is diverted all over the place, through water control systems I never heard about. Water is a basic requirement for survival, and like most everything, I have little say about it, or even a casual understanding of how its management works.

What is certain is that if you control a person's water supply, you control his life. The rain barrel law just reminds of that.

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Yes, IF you have water rights to the land you live on you can take anything that comes off the roof. It is kinda weird though isn't it? If you collect the rain off the roof and use it to water a garden, doesn't it eventually end up in the "owner's" possession eventually same as if it hit the ground at the roof drip line? Not quite the same as collecting it and selling it at the roadside, in manufacturing something or mixing it with nasty chemicals and injecting it at high pressure into the ground.

My grandfather moved from Spain to California at the age of 15. That would have been around 1910. He bought a small farm, learned English and figured out he was being screwed by the people who were selling him water. Not sure exactly how but he managed to buy some water rights so his life wasn't controlled by someone else.

Awe heck, Ontario is only a stones throw so I included it along with lake saint Claire and a gazillion other lakes. We are basically a floating bog.
Keep in mind that most of this planets water is under your feet. So who's well is it now? Fill the water barrel from the sky and dig the well deeper!

bruceha2000 said:

I think you are pushing it a bit there. Only 4 of the lakes touch Michigan, Lake Ontario is 100 miles away so it doesn't count   That cuts your "local water" down to a couple bazillion gazillion gallons!


Yes, IF you have water rights to the land you live on you can take anything that comes off the roof. It is kinda weird though isn't it? If you collect the rain off the roof and use it to water a garden, doesn't it eventually end up in the "owner's" possession eventually same as if it hit the ground at the roof drip line? Not quite the same as collecting it and selling it at the roadside, in manufacturing something or mixing it with nasty chemicals and injecting it at high pressure into the ground.

My grandfather moved from Spain to California at the age of 15. That would have been around 1910. He bought a small farm, learned English and figured out he was being screwed by the people who were selling him water. Not sure exactly how but he managed to buy some water rights so his life wasn't controlled by someone else.

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Interesting. The water issues are so layered I cannot even begin to unravel or understand them. (What is a prepper to do?) Yes, collecting water to redirect it to a garden would seem to be within the spirit of the law, if not within its actual application. I googled this subject a few years ago and could find very little written about it. What WAS written about the law was so vague as to be totally useless. My thought was that a person would have to be either the richest person on earth or have unbeatable political clout in order to win a righteous case in court if the powers-at-be opposed him. For sure it's a political/power thing, and, as a peasant, I have no say about it. Water right laws now bear little resemblance to the laws of 1910, I think, and there are now many fine print lines changing the basic definition of what we mean when we say "water rights" today. For sure there are water barrels being sold in Colorado, though. I just do my best, for me and my chicks. And so, too, I wish everybody THEIR best. God bless.

I suppose one could put a curtain drain on both "eave" sides of their house (to keep the rain from seeping into the basement) and direct them to an underground "rain barrel". Not necessarily within the letter of the law but the water still hits the ground off the roof right? And it is still in the ground, right?

I really have to wonder how any of the rainwater coming off a roof, other than in a deluge that would swamp a rain barrel in minutes, would ever get down to the water table anyway. I think it would mostly soak into the upper layers of the ground and be accessed by the vegetation surrounding the house.

bruceha2000 said:

I suppose one could put a curtain drain on both "eave" sides of their house (to keep the rain from seeping into the basement) and direct them to an underground "rain barrel".   Not necessarily within the letter of the law but the water still hits the ground off the roof right? And it is still in the ground, right?

I really have to wonder how any of the rainwater coming off a roof, other than in a deluge that would swamp a rain barrel in minutes, would ever get down to the water table anyway. I think it would mostly soak into the upper layers of the ground and be accessed by the vegetation surrounding the house.

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You are right about this. I did extend a gutter downspout under a walkway out from the house down a slope. It has possibilities. My rain barrels can be set up to be de-Iced to drain in the winter, and they can also be set up as planters. My coops don't have gutters and now and then I research ways to keep water runoff from being a problem. Fortunately, the ground here is sloped and the ground is usually dry, so the solution can be on back burner.

My most immediate concern is how to keep my birds from perching on their waterers. My bucket waterers have flat lids of course, and they are a pita to open and close to fill and clean, especially in sub freezing temps. I have a bucket opener, but it is just a small help, and I don't want to finance the expense of gamma lids for them all. I thought I could drill holes in the lids - through which to stick hose ends (and heaters when it's freezing) - but the birds peck out the plugs I put in, and their feces drop in and run down into the water when they perch on the top of the bucket. I like the concept of the bucket nipple waterers, but the lids are a problem for my arthritic hands; a lid covering, or clips to hold the lids on, or perching deterrents might work. I am considering running a bulkhead thing through the side at the top of the bucket and attaching a quick connect for a garden hose connection. Maybe an additional hole up around the top could act as an overflow and let me know when the bucket was full. Maybe it could be an overflow hose sort of thing that I could use to flush the bucket now and then. A notch in the side of the bucket could allow for the cord of a heater. Ok, I will think on it. Thanks for your help. Maybe I can use these ideas for my 55 gallon drum waterers? For anyone who might consider doing some such thing, it is IMPORTANT to consider BACK FLOW issues, no?

What is a curtain drain?

So fill the darn barrel with your own water! The whole purpose is to minimize filling water dishes.

Our Roost said:

     So fill the darn barrel with your own water! The whole purpose is to minimize filling water dishes.

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That is exactly what I do and how I use them, and used even this way, they are a major convenience. I highly recommend. Thanks and Blessings