for those who use heated dog bowls

[3 sisters farm]

I live in WA...rarely freezes, but its been a week since it got above freezing...could only get 2 heater bases...so am using the 1 1/2 gallon dog bowls...they work great and are much easier to deal with than the galvanized water which leaked likely leading to my chickens frozen foot! (she is getting better slowly).

 

[illinichick]

Using an open water bowl is fine, as long as they dont go outside and get their wet wattles frozen. The actual chicken waterers that have the trough around the bottom is to prevent the chicken from dipping too far and getting their wattles wet.

 

[vermontgal]

I use a small "chick waterer" with a 1 quart plastic jar placed inside the dog bowl. This is just about perfect for 2 days of drinking water for my 4 chickens.

The dog bowl heater is only 60 watts, so I am not worried about the plastic in the dog bowl getting too hot. The chick waterer - I have no idea if the plastic is bad to warm up. I think it is all polyethelene (either #1 or #2), which is what the dog bowl is made out of.

I like the chick waterer system vs. just putting water in the dog bowl because:
• I have two chick waterers, and so I can just swap the empty one out with a clean and filled one from inside.
• The waterer inside the bowl doesn't get stuff kicked into it. Especially in my location - on a narrow 8-10" wide shelf with basically just space for the chickens to walk over and drink.
• Hopefully less wattle-dunking, as mentioned by previous posters.

Since I clean the chick waterers, I haven't cleaned the dog bowl itself in the whole month I've had it.

 

[dftkarin]

I bought a 1.5 gallon heated dog bowl from the TSC and since I onlty have 4 hens and a small cop - I'm hoping to plunk either my 1 quart or 1 gallon waterer in the bowl - but I'm still a little worries that the heat of the bowl with no water in it might be dangerous or melt the bottom of the plastic waterer. I guess I'll try it and watch carefully.

 

[lobb40118]

I have a heated dog bowl for the peafowl but I made a heater for my plastic one gallon for the Hens. Someone on here suggested to take a christmas cookie tine and mount a 40 watts bulb inside and it works like a charm no more frozen water.

 

[Jenski]

dftkarin, my smaller heated water bowl has had no problems heating empty; it doesn't get hot enough to burn anything, and I feel quite safe using it after keeping an eye on it for 2 months.

One thing I did do was turn a small ceramic creme brulee cup over in the middle of it when I filled it with water; this kept my bantam cochin from sitting in the water bowl!