Ducks in winter...water in their coop..?

[zekii]

We live in an area of the country where winters can get cold/freezing weather for
weeks at a time. This will be our first winter housing over ducks. Looking to find out
what others do with providing duck water in winter...in their coop or outside the coop?
Do you heat the water, do you offer a large pool of water for them to swim or just enough for them to drink?

 

[Miss Lydia]

We live in an area of the country where winters can get cold/freezing weather for
weeks at a time. This will be our first winter housing over ducks. Looking to find out
what others do with providing duck water in winter...in their coop or outside the coop?
Do you heat the water, do you offer a large pool of water for them to swim or just enough for them to drink?

If you can go to TSC they have heated water buckets, and they are on a thermostat so only come on when temps get below 32* I don't put them inside the coops though, coops here are for sleeping. I can usually keep the pool going till sometime in Nov. . then I just dump it and give them a cement mixing bowl to wash in on days it's above freezing.

 

[Going Quackers]

I go the heated bucket route.. it's kept in the barn.. i don't offer any pools.. i just keep ours open for as long as I can, cracking ice out etc...

 

[WaterFowl209]

Fish aquarium or pond heater could work in a small pull as long as it has an auto shutoff function

 

[Carcajou]

If you have a spring you can run the water into a bucket or tub inside the house and let it flow back out through an overflow. This has worked for me in the Catskill Mountain region of NY.

 

[Missy60]

What do you do if you have no electricity in the pen?

 

[Valntyn]

We're in Maine and this past Winter was our first with ducks. We didn't keep their pool filled during the Winter. We used a heated water bowl from TSC and ran a long, outdoor-safe extension cord from the house. If it hit 30-35 degrees, it turned on automatically and kept the water thawed. And the water stays out in the pen... water in a duck house would be tooo messy.

Edited to add: If you can't get electricity to your pen, I can only think that you'd have to make sure you refill water bowls at least twice daily (especially when they have food). That's what we did before we got our heated water bowl.

 

[PetesMom]

What do you do if you have no electricity in the pen?

We also don't have electricity so we have to go get the buckets, go back up to the house fill them, then bring them back down......twice a day

 

[zekii]

Ok...thanks all for your replies, going to TSC today to check out the heated water buckets.....

 

[ArcticFowl]

you can also get the heaters for stock tanks prolly at your TSC to keep the water thawed its used for stock tanks in colder climates.