Nothing beats a chicken nipple system for keeping the water clean, whether a simple bucket system, or a fancy heated pipe system with the nipples in the PVC pipe.
Sounds like Howard is using a chicken nipple bucket, and taking it in the house every night.
My bucket will usually not freeze in the high 20's, but it's been a cold winter, and the nipples have frozen several times (how I know the limits of the freezing temperaures) with no leaks or damage to the nipples I can see.
I use the horizontal nipples, just a horizontal metal nipple with a tiny cup (half inch), not the horizobtwl kind with a larger cup. There's also the type that go on the bottom of the bucket, instead of the sides. After a bunch of reading, it appeared from reviews, that the tiny cup horizontal nipple is simpler, and leaks less.
If there several days of freezing predicted, I remove the nipple bucket and switch to my cold weather backup plan.
I have an 18"x24" small black Home Depot mortar mixing tub. I made a slot to fit it on the south end of the tractor, that I can access and remove through a small external flap door.
I take a big bucket of water out on those freezing mornings, dumo the frozen tub, put the tub back and dump the warm water in the tub.
Because the tub has a large surface area, is black, which absorbs heat, and is at the sunny south end of the tractor, it usually stays unfrozen until roosting time, even with daytime highs in the teens.
I've also read filling a couple of plastic bottles, like a 20 ounce soda bottle, with a solution of salt water, which won't freeze, and placing it in the tub helps to prevent freezing, but I have no personal experience with that.
Chicken nipple bucket. Its nice they're on the sides, then you're able to set the bucket on the ground to fill it.
The freezing weather backup water supply being filled in the morning.
I got these chicken nipples on Amazon, they're pretty inexpensive, a few dollars for several. Drill holes in plastic bucket and screw them in. Haven't leaked since installed 7 months ago, even after freezing several times. I did wrap the threads in teflon tape. Naturally, the metal freezes first when they do freeze, usually in the high 20's for me.
Do yourself a favor if you have a bucket you've got to open and shut a lot. Get a screw on Gamma Seal lid, like you see on the nipple bucket, mine happens to be blue, but they have to other colors too. Just snap on the outer ring, then you can screw the lid on and off easily.
Gamma Seal assembly snapped onto a 7.5 gallon plastic bucket from Uline. If I recall they are between $8 and $12 each for the Gamma Seal.
I wanted a taller 7.5 gallon bucket for my nipple bucket. That provides more pressure at the nipples because it's taller, and of course, it has 50 percent more capacity than a standard 5 gallon bucket.
The best place I've found for these buckets, and the Gamma Seal, was at Uline.com They're a huge industrial supply company, and the best prices I saw.
Sounds like Howard is using a chicken nipple bucket, and taking it in the house every night.
My bucket will usually not freeze in the high 20's, but it's been a cold winter, and the nipples have frozen several times (how I know the limits of the freezing temperaures) with no leaks or damage to the nipples I can see.
I use the horizontal nipples, just a horizontal metal nipple with a tiny cup (half inch), not the horizobtwl kind with a larger cup. There's also the type that go on the bottom of the bucket, instead of the sides. After a bunch of reading, it appeared from reviews, that the tiny cup horizontal nipple is simpler, and leaks less.
If there several days of freezing predicted, I remove the nipple bucket and switch to my cold weather backup plan.
I have an 18"x24" small black Home Depot mortar mixing tub. I made a slot to fit it on the south end of the tractor, that I can access and remove through a small external flap door.
I take a big bucket of water out on those freezing mornings, dumo the frozen tub, put the tub back and dump the warm water in the tub.
Because the tub has a large surface area, is black, which absorbs heat, and is at the sunny south end of the tractor, it usually stays unfrozen until roosting time, even with daytime highs in the teens.
I've also read filling a couple of plastic bottles, like a 20 ounce soda bottle, with a solution of salt water, which won't freeze, and placing it in the tub helps to prevent freezing, but I have no personal experience with that.
Chicken nipple bucket. Its nice they're on the sides, then you're able to set the bucket on the ground to fill it.
The freezing weather backup water supply being filled in the morning.
I got these chicken nipples on Amazon, they're pretty inexpensive, a few dollars for several. Drill holes in plastic bucket and screw them in. Haven't leaked since installed 7 months ago, even after freezing several times. I did wrap the threads in teflon tape. Naturally, the metal freezes first when they do freeze, usually in the high 20's for me.
Do yourself a favor if you have a bucket you've got to open and shut a lot. Get a screw on Gamma Seal lid, like you see on the nipple bucket, mine happens to be blue, but they have to other colors too. Just snap on the outer ring, then you can screw the lid on and off easily.
Gamma Seal assembly snapped onto a 7.5 gallon plastic bucket from Uline. If I recall they are between $8 and $12 each for the Gamma Seal.
I wanted a taller 7.5 gallon bucket for my nipple bucket. That provides more pressure at the nipples because it's taller, and of course, it has 50 percent more capacity than a standard 5 gallon bucket.
The best place I've found for these buckets, and the Gamma Seal, was at Uline.com They're a huge industrial supply company, and the best prices I saw.
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