Help! 11 degrees ºF outside and need some water!

[Quail_Kid]

My water heaters are working fine but the water cups are frozen. So I am manually giving them water in bowls but I have to go out there every 30 minutes and get out the ice and refill. Can I use Snow for them to drink?

 

[Folly's place]

That's why I use the old style metal waterers, with heater metal bases. They have worked fine here in -15F weather. I have two set up in the coop, so if one fails, there's another.
Heated dog dishes work fine too, as long as you don't have little chicks, or roosters with large wattles.
Mary

 

[Relleoms]

Are you able to swap out the cups for horizontal nipples in your heated waterer?

 

[imnukensc]

My water heaters are working fine but the water cups are frozen.

And that's the problem with cups!

 

[chickens really]

Warm water twice a day will work too.

 

[GRB73]

Fresh water is vital, especially in extreme cold. Offering snow would not be an adequate substitute.
Do you have access to a heated dog water bowl you could use instead? Or a deeper container that wouldn't freeze solid as quickly? I've heard the thick, black rubber containers work well. This way you only need to break the top ice up every few hours or so. I have the same problem with sub freezing temps. For me it means many extra trips to the run to break the ice in their bowl.

 

[gtaus]

I have Icelandics

Well, I think that's the most important point right there. I had to Google Icelandics because I have never seen any, but it sounds like they were bred for over a 1000 years to survive the harsh winters of Iceland.

"Norse settlers brought their home flocks to Iceland in the ninth century. For more than a thousand years, the only chickens in the country were of this robust landrace."

So, yeah, I guess you might be on to something there at least with that breed. Here is a very nice article I found on Icelandic Chickens: A Heritage Chicken Breed for Modern Homesteads. Very nice article.

I don't know if your no water - eat snow - method would work for my small backyard flock of various breeds of chickens. But you may be on to something there with your flock. Thanks for stirring the pot.

 

[blackdog043]

It might be worth while to make a new waterer, with horizontal nipples.

https://www.backyardchickens.com/ar...ock-tank-deicer-and-horizontal-nipples.74609/

 

[BigBlueHen53]

Snow is very dry and very cold. Trying to get sufficient moisture from snow will cause the creature "drinking" it to suffer a catastrophic loss of body heat resulting in hypothermia and possibly death. An interesting experiment is to fill up a saucepan with snow and heat it on the stove to see how little moisture it actually has. It requires a huge expenditure of calories to warm snow in the body to a useful temperature. I understand that people have frozen to death eating snow.*

Edit: * people lost in the wilderness in extreme situations. Edit #2: while their companions who did not eat snow, survived. Sorry, I am the queen of the afterthought... or of hitting Post too soon....

 

[gtaus]

That's why I use the old style metal waterers, with heater metal bases. They have worked fine here in -15F weather. I have two set up in the coop, so if one fails, there's another.
Heated dog dishes work fine too, as long as you don't have little chicks, or roosters with large wattles.
Mary

This is my first winter with laying hens, but I too went with the old style metal waterer with heater metal base. So far, with temps down to 2F at night, the water has not frozen on the heater metal base.

I have been thinking about buying a heated dog dish as a backup for my metal waterer. I'll probably buy one if they go on sale this winter. It's good to have a backup.

So I am manually giving them water in bowls but I have to go out there every 30 minutes and get out the ice and refill. Can I use Snow for them to drink?

Maybe I'm just too old, but there is no way I could be going outside in the cold just to clear the ice on the waterer every 30 minutes. I invested in the old style metal waterer and heated metal base so I could spend more time enjoying my chickens and less time toting warm water on those cold winter days. My 3 gallon waterer holds enough water for about 7-10 days before I have to refill it. My feeder holds enough food for more than a week. So I just check on the food and water every morning when I let my 10 chickens out and again at night when I lock them up in the coop.

Also, I have the food and water in the coop itself 24/7. If the weather is not very good in the morning, and I want to sleep in, I don't feel guilty about it as the girls are well cared for with everything they need in the coop itself. Besides, my hens don't really care about staying outside very much in the cold and spend most of their time in their coop these days.

From everything I have read, snow is not a replacement for water. If you give them warm water a couple times a day, they would probably be fine. But I'd sure recommend you look into getting a real water heater solution so your girls can have water 24/7. The heated dog dish is probably a less expensive option, but I like the fact that my old style metal waterer only needs to be refilled once every 7-10 days.