Can they drink from a bowl on the ground?

They seemed confused. I had to give them a bowl on the ground because the chicken nipple froze. Not sure how to prevent that. It's still pretty warm (about 30F) and yet the nipple still froze.

 

Yes I guess what I was trying to say was that as it gets colder they're just going to freeze faster. I don't see how the chicken nipples are much good in cold climate. The bowls I put out for them today I had to change 3 times because they froze. Today the high was 32F and hovered around 29F all day. I know that's at and below freezing, but it'll get much colder than that as the winter goes on. I don't want to be out there 10 times a day giving them new water. I'm working on some way to insulate and heat some other type of waterer. I should have thought of this seeing as it's winter here most of the year, duh. I was looking at this page, what do you think: http://www.motherearthnews.com/home...icken-waterer-zm0z13fmzhun.aspx#axzz2kT4aHUpl

 

Where do I get a bucket heater? What is it made from? Does it go inside (the bucket), outside or?? Thanks

 

Thanks everyone, I have something else rigged up. They had been drinking from an inverted Aquafina water bottle with a chicken nipple in the cap. I'd been wanting to do something different for them anyway. I now have a stainless steel bucket (holds about a gallon) with chicken nipples, wrapped with water pipe heat tape and wrapped over that with reflectix insulation (which I had here anyway).

It holds a lot more water than the Aquafina bottle so hopefully the greater volume, heat tape, and reflectix will keep it from freezing. It's warm now so will have to wait and see. Only problem I see is the chickens like to peck and pull at the reflectix and the reflectix just being bubble paper with a thin layer of metal over it, I hope the heat tape doesn't get hot enough to melt it. Maybe I can wrap it with something else to keep the heat in, dunno what would be chicken-safe, though.