Frozen waters

[aart]

Even though the trough was frozen solid the water in the tank itself was not frozen solid only had a web of ice partially frozen.

Was this with the salt bottle?
It's gotta be a PITA the get a bottle inside that kind of waterer.

The smaller volume of water in the trough freezes due simply to being smaller in volume, exposed to cold air all over, if that makes sense.

Exactly.

I'm using 15 drops of a natural homeopathic remedy in 1/2 gallon of water per day. Treating the whole flock 14 days.( 7 more days to go) .I added a 2 year old rooster to my flock a month ago and want to make sure none of them have worms before spring arrives.If they had worms this makes them pass them then you see what they've got..

What is the active ingredient in this stuff.

 

[Ascholten]

They make heat tracing that is waterproof. It's basically a cord that heats up when power is put thru it, you could run some of that around the bucket to keep it warm. One thing I use for my planted in the ground trees is, I get a string of christmas tree lights, not the led but the bulb types and wrap them with those then pull a blanket or something over them, the bulbs put enough heat out to keep them from getting frost bite and the blanket helps keep the heat in. Maybe something similar with an old pillow case or smaller insulating, think burlap bag, Wrap the water tank with the string of lights and cover with a pillow / burlap bag and use a piece of rope or something to loosely tie it on?

For a bucket of water on the ground, they also make for lizards, heating pads and hot rocks, which are water proof because well, the thing may take a dump on it ..Plug in and it heats up. Get one of those heating a bucket up thats sitting on top of it and it should keep it thawed out. They also make immersion heaters for fish tanks too, that might work to keep the water thawed, and that you would not need to worry about it getting too hot.

Extension cords, yes, get new cords, when they get cold they get brittle, and if the thing is already questionable, you don't need it cracking and exposing wires for you to potentially grab. Since you are not running like a 400 to 1500 watt heater, you don't need to worry about a bunch of amps, so you can get the smaller gauge cords like a 14 or even 16 gauge cord and be fine, and not have to pay 100 dollars for a 12ga or contractor grade cord.

Good luck and hope you can get it worked out. Worrying about the birds is never fun

Aaron

 

[Stoney Meadow Maple]

They make heat tracing that is waterproof. It's basically a cord that heats up when power is put thru it, you could run some of that around the bucket to keep it warm. One thing I use for my planted in the ground trees is, I get a string of christmas tree lights, not the led but the bulb types and wrap them with those then pull a blanket or something over them, the bulbs put enough heat out to keep them from getting frost bite and the blanket helps keep the heat in. Maybe something similar with an old pillow case or smaller insulating, think burlap bag, Wrap the water tank with the string of lights and cover with a pillow / burlap bag and use a piece of rope or something to loosely tie it on?

For a bucket of water on the ground, they also make for lizards, heating pads and hot rocks, which are water proof because well, the thing may take a dump on it ..Plug in and it heats up. Get one of those heating a bucket up thats sitting on top of it and it should keep it thawed out. They also make immersion heaters for fish tanks too, that might work to keep the water thawed, and that you would not need to worry about it getting too hot.

Extension cords, yes, get new cords, when they get cold they get brittle, and if the thing is already questionable, you don't need it cracking and exposing wires for you to potentially grab. Since you are not running like a 400 to 1500 watt heater, you don't need to worry about a bunch of amps, so you can get the smaller gauge cords like a 14 or even 16 gauge cord and be fine, and not have to pay 100 dollars for a 12ga or contractor grade cord.

Good luck and hope you can get it worked out. Worrying about the birds is never fun

Aaron

Even if it were a larger load with long run of cord it is purely resistive, if you loose 20v on the run your heater would get less hot but still work fine
All these things seem like a lot of extra work when there are inexpensive products for the purpose.
Even getting hot water and lugging it out multiple times a day will add up, the average electric water heater is 4500 watts so it has to produce that hot water, a 50-100w thermostatic deicer will save energy and water and time and provide peace of mind.

 

[Ascholten]

They are extra work, but until you go out and get the proper stuff, in a pinch, or on a budget, they'll get the job done. I personally would rather just set it up once and be done with it, especially with something like this, where it's not going to change over time.

You could always slap a solar panel on the roof of the coop too, with a 12 volt heater, available at camping supply places, hook it up and not worry about power cords at all.

Plenty of options.

Aaron

 

[Ascholten]

Here is something else you can consider, not too expensive

https://growerssolution.com/collections/heating-mats-cables/products/4-tray-seedling-heat-mats

Aaron

Edit, if you mash their food it would even keep that from getting frozen.

 

[Gypsi]

guess I will just take them some more warm water and pull the pump. and not build the cookie tin, current temp is about 15 and dropping with a wind chill of 2 below last time I checked.

 

[McChooky]

If the water inside the waterer doesn't freeze, due to being of larger volume, then perhaps you should give the chickens a bucket to drink from, possibly a heavy black rubber one. The smaller volume of water in the trough freezes due simply to being smaller in volume, exposed to cold air all over, if that makes sense. I mean, it's like if you put a saucer of water on the ground, that's going to freeze very quickly. If you can put a one-gallon bucket out there for them, that might take almost all day to freeze over. It would have to get extremely cold to freeze solid.

You're right! A larger volume takes longer to freeze.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

You're right! A larger volume takes longer to freeze.

Yeaaah, but.... I should point out that the TOP of the water will still freeze pretty quickly. So you'll need to go out and break the ice and, ideally, REMOVE that ice from the bucket. Leaving broken ice in the bucket will cause the water in the bucket to freeze pretty quickly. Protect your hands!

 

[indianaducks]

My current favorite method of duck waterers in the winter (the red, green and blue buckets). Yes they freeze but they are much easier to thaw with fresh hot water than traditional poultry waterers.
This is my prep for the winter storm we are getting hit with. -8 with windchill in -40s at 8am tmw. Had to turn my outside faucet off today too because of the weather. So filled up buckets and have them stored in my somewhat heated garage for easy watering tmw morning

Will still have to bring hot water out tmw multiple times a day tmw.

 

[NatJ]

Yeaaah, but.... I should point out that the TOP of the water will still freeze pretty quickly. So you'll need to go out and break the ice and, ideally, REMOVE that ice from the bucket. Leaving broken ice in the bucket will cause the water in the bucket to freeze pretty quickly. Protect your hands!

I agree. The top does freeze over long before the whole thing freezes solid.

But the larger the container, the longer it stays ice-free before the ice starts to form on the top. So a big container still works better than a small container.

If I have to go remove ice (or check for it), I like to bring a jug of hot water too. I can add that to the bucket, so it's now full of warm water instead of cold water, which of course means it will take longer to start freezing again. So I get a bit longer before I have to go out the next time.