frozen waterers

[rockinpaints]

Cheers from Ohio!

Glad you could join us!

 

[Dnetschke]

 

[Alaskan]

I would love more frozen water comments.

Pictures of the compost pile in the coop would be great..... You don't have problems with rodents falling in love with the compost box and trying to live around the edges?

And has anyone figured out an easy, not overly technical way to make those water nipples work in -10 F?

I have tried the standard metal waterers on a heated base..... The base only keeps the bottom few inches from freezing, so then the higher up water freezes so that the metal freezes to itself and you can't slide the top up to refill it. Then you bang it around in frustration and the welds give out and it is no longer usable even in the summer. *sigh*

I have tried the dog water bowls, but then the electricity goes out for just a tiny bit, it freezes solid to the ground, and when you try to pry it off of the ground that it is now fused to, the bottom heating coil rips off and then I worry that if I keep using it it will catch something on fire.

I have ended up using those black plastic, flexible horse/ livestock feeder bowls. I put a stock tank decider in the bowl and ta da! If the power goes out and it turns into an ice chunk you can kick it about and finally pop the ice out WITHOUT breaking anything.

Only problem is that the water DOES get nasty after awhile and needs to be dumped.....HOW DO I DUMP IT? Such a pain! There is no easy way to chunk the nasty water out, and it is at least a gallon worth that needs to be chunked out, sometimes more like four gallons when I want to rinse it well. And then I am stuck with ice chunks or an ice slick of nasty water. Because no, a totally frozen world does not let water drain. By the time my SIX months of freezing weather are over, things are getting nasty and depressing. And I can hear someone saying "just bring it inside to clean out". Yes yes, but those black plastic pans are bendy, so there is no way I can carry it more than 2 feet without the nasty water splashing out all over me. I could only rinse it out somewhere else, yes....but I would still need to dump the nasty water, right close to where it is sitting, before I could move it.

I want a CLEANER watering system that will work for me.

And I do know that I am being way overly whiny, but I still have 2 feet of snow. Sniff sniff