Any thoughts on heated garden hoses?

[Parrotchick]

I need about 75+ feet of garden hose to get from the spigot on my house to the various bird waterers and ducky pools. I use a regular 50 foot garden hose with a 50 foot coil hose attached-I find that it is much lighter that way and easier to drag all over the place. But the cold water makes the work miserable no matter what. I try draining the hoses, but they always seem to freeze anyway. I detach the whole shebang and drag it into my basement to keep it from freezing but that is a colossal pain in the behind. I know the ducks really only need a bucket (and that's all they get when there's a ton of snow like last year) but even that involves having running water somewhere besides the house. Right now, my chicken waterer has a metal heating base and the ducks have giant rubber feed bowls with floating de-icers. They all work well so long as I can get water to them.

Has anyone here used any of those garden hoses that have heating elements, where you plug it in and in 20 minutes it's warm enough? What's your opinion and any better/worse places or kinds to get? Most of them seem to be PVC but one place also offered rubber that it said was better for daily use. Sixty feet is the longest I've seen and they run $150-$200 online.

My ducks have had a lot of Mud Slushies the past week.

 

[secretquail]

I can't wait for some answers. I too have to stretch a hose about 50' to the duck area. When it freezes, they either have nasty duck poo water to splash in, or an empty pond to get stuck in. (It was pretty funny coming home to the quacks for help, and seeing their heads sticking up over the side of the plastic pond! ...turns out, they could jump/flap their way out when a big person joined them!)

I only have 2, so I just lug out a fresh 3 gallon bucket of hot water each morning. I think through the thick of winter, they are going to have to go sans pool.

We do have a creek that split our yard, and I'm thinking about putting up some plastic fencing for a day yard. At least then they will have a bit of fresh water/mud to splash around in.

 

[gofasterstripe]

I dont have a problem with my hoses freezing. I undo the hose, pull it out and leave it pointing slightly down hill and blow the sucker out to make sure ALL the water is out. The next morning, I hook it up and give fresh water.

 

[Baybrio]

I thought about the heated hose but was afraid it would "die" and then I'd have to spend a million dollars to return it. This link http://www.horse.com/stable-supplies/waterers/804/ goes to a horse supply site that also offers a hanger with a cover that is heated. It is pricey but I think it is more likely to hold up that the heated hose. I don't have any experience with either one.

Before I had water in the barn I resorted to using a 100 gallon stock tank. I put it on pallets, wrapped it in insulation, covered it with a piece of plywood and added a stock tank deicer. I put it high enough on pallets so I could get a bucket below the bottom then added a ball valve in the drain hole. Then you only have to drag the hose out when the tank is near empty. It worked fine.

 

[Amiga]

I am using gofasterstripe's method and it works okay. I don't have far to go, though, with the hose, and with my setup it is not the end of the world if the hose is not working.

The heated hose concept sounds intriguing. I like the idea.

 

[Parrotchick]

I have several duck pens plus big animals in a pasture on the other side of the house (fortunately not so high maintenance with water). So I need the travelling hose. I seldom ever put it away unless maybe company's coming, since it's all so heavy and cumbersome. But I'll look at the heated holder option though it seems if I was going to do that I could probably roll the whole thing up on a hose reel and schlep that into the cellar and save the money. I'll definitely be looking a warranties as it seems like a lot of things like to break down in the cold of winter-probably why the one company offered rubber hoses.

gofasterstripe I will try your idea of blowing in the hose to see if that helps. I had been relying on gravity and shaking the hoses around. I have a really old house and a well and not the most trustworty plumbing/pipes and it's kind of awkward getting at the spigot at all. I've tried different configurations but so many things have plastic in them that crack at nothing. When it's super cold, I have to keep my wood burning stove going non-stop with a fan pointed towards the pipes under my sink as the pipes run from my cellar into a hole to the back of the house with the pipes either on the ground or just below, under the kitchen floor. With no access, I would have to dig out the kitchen floor if they ever burst!

secretquail the thought of your stuck ducks gives me a chuckle. I used deer netting attached to those green metal garden stakes as my poultry containment for nearly a year. It even held up with all those blizzards last year and was less unsightly than plastic. The only problem was that snakes would get stuck in it and I regularly had to extricate them-not for the feint of heart. But please make sure you have something very visible and easily removed if you put fencing across your creek. I am a whitewater kayaker who loves "creeking", and I don't know how big or fast your creek can get after a heavy rain, but fences are deathtraps for people, and possibly even for your ducks if the current is strong and they are unable to get out of the water. They are called "strainers" and I have seen the remains of dead animals in them (usually downed trees, but sometimes wire), generally deer and other mammals. And I've experienced and heard of a lot of gnarly cases of human encounters with strainers, including some that resulted in death. So not to scare you, especially if you have a tiny mellow creek with little gradient, but just something to think about. It would be horrible for a duck to drown because he got stuck in a fence.

 

[goosedragon]

Quote:
Yes but you are in South Carolina! Here in North Carolina I drain the hose when finished and then wait until the afternoon (when it is usually above freezing) to fill pools and waterers. Usually have to break the skim ice in the pools and the birds keep it open during the day. On a cold ,morning like today 17F I carry out a bucket of warm water from the house and hope it warms up for the pools by the afternoon. If not there just isn't any swim call but they do have clean water to drink twice a day at least.

 

[ChooksChick]

I got a heated hose a week ago- it's so cold here there is NO CHANCE of water staying thawed in a normal gallon drinker for more than 20 minutes before the ice must be broken, so liquid water coming out of the hose convinced me!! I'm still concerned about the faucet freezing, so it comes off the spigot at night, but is still plugged in so it can be used the next day. I could just drain it, but it's hard to wrangle when cold, and I'd rather it stay somewhat flexible. I'm afraid the water would freeze in it before it could warm up again, too, and don't want to wait to use it, so I leave it plugged in.

There are no really easy answers until I put in some irrigation under the frost line. That's the way it'll have to be, really, in the end.

 

[gofasterstripe]

Quote:
Yes but you are in South Carolina! Here in North Carolina I drain the hose when finished and then wait until the afternoon (when it is usually above freezing) to fill pools and waterers. Usually have to break the skim ice in the pools and the birds keep it open during the day. On a cold ,morning like today 17F I carry out a bucket of warm water from the house and hope it warms up for the pools by the afternoon. If not there just isn't any swim call but they do have clean water to drink twice a day at least.

Yes I might be in SC but...for the past week and a half I havent had water in the house untill the afternoon. Who ever built this house didnt bury the pipes deep enough. Sometimes my spigot freezes and I have to go out with a hair dryer and blow the pipes there for 15 mins or so to get water....but my hose...because its empty its not fill of frozen water. When I put the ducks up at night I empty their buckets and put in fresh water then in the mornings I have to break ice...it gives them fresh water to drink when they get let out ans then in the afternoon I give fresh again, then at bedtime, wash and repeat. Its all good fun when your out there struggling with frozen water isnt it

 

[rainplace]

We use some heated hoses for our cattle stock tanks, however around here when it gets cold enough that they are needed, we usually also lose electricity, which means we have to open up the creek (we don't like to do that because of the runoff). A few issues back Mother Earth News had plans for a passive solar heated stock tank and I've been thinking about making a couple not only for the cattle, but for the fowl too.