Help! 11 degrees ºF outside and need some water!

[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....

 

[CindyinSD]

I haven’t seen any quail-folk using heated waterers. I suppose you could use vertical nipple waterers with a bucket deicer, but you need a bucket large enough to contain the deicer, so a 1.5 gallon-size at least. It could work for you if you have large enough cages or an aviary and are able to teach your quail to use the vertical nipples. I suspect the horizontal nipples would be too hard to push for the lightweight quailies.

You can start by filling waterers with warm water and switching out to unfrozen waterers as needed. It’s a pain, but if your quail housing is fairly well protected, you may only need to do this a couple times a day. If it gets too cold (-0s) maybe you’ll want to add heat. I don’t know how cold you can safely let your quail get, but if you do add heat, that will also keep your water liquid a little longer.

 

[CindyinSD]

You might also want to ask this in the quail section... the quail hatch-along thread is an active thread and covers lots of general-information topics with lots of friendly knowledgeable people. Most of them are southern, but there are folks from cold climates, too.

 

[centrarchid]

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....

I am trying to find science to back your assertion up about eating snow. I am not finding it yet. Closest thing comes from forums not like this one where humans are the species involved. Wildlife in cooler climates may not have access to open water for extended periods. Wildlife is often eating food items that are more hydrated. Our confined domestic birds are eating feeds that dehydrated to the extreme to prevent feed degradation during storage.

 

[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.

 

[gtaus]

Wildlife in cooler climates may not have access to open water for extended periods.

Very true. They manage to survive somehow. But I do think having fresh water is a better option for the chickens and puts less stress on them. Nobody I know that raises chickens has every suggested just letting them eat snow.

I wonder how people kept water for their chickens before electricity on the farm?

 

[centrarchid]

Very true. They manage to survive somehow. But I do think having fresh water is a better option for the chickens and puts less stress on them. Nobody I know that raises chickens has every suggested just letting them eat snow.

I wonder how people kept water for their chickens before electricity on the farm?

Wife, kids, care taker checked them multiple times per day. Or they got watered once per day from well. Or production nor realized when it gets cold. For most likely last option. Winter production and tight confinement not realized until advent of complete feeds. Everyone with day job in household makes cold winters tougher.
Another option is house birds in warm environment above freezing.

This question has been eating at me for some time. My grandmother used a hybrid approach with her 100 or so layers in a hen house. She provide house warmed water in a relatively large volume where latter slowed temperature drop in waterer. Hen house was marginally warmer because of heat production by chickens. Prior to that a wood burning stove kept hatching-egg production hens warm, or at least the area where water was placed and eggs collected. My grandfathers kept game roosters outside in pens where they got well water once in the morning and soaked oats to carry them through balance of the day. Some days that got a second shot of water. That was a lot of water bowls. There was some help at end of day from kids.

 

[BigBlueHen53]

I am trying to find science to back your assertion up about eating snow. I am not finding it yet. Closest thing comes from forums not like this one where humans are the species involved. Wildlife in cooler climates may not have access to open water for extended periods. Wildlife is often eating food items that are more hydrated. Our confined domestic birds are eating feeds that dehydrated to the extreme to prevent feed degradation during storage.

Thanks, I did ponder my post afterward (as I often do) and wondered if what is true for humans is true for birds. Birds metabolize much faster than humans so that could be a factor. I wondered what birds do in the wild when streams freeze over, as you said. So bottom line, regarding OP's question: I don't know, for quail.

 

[centrarchid]

Thanks, I did ponder my post afterward (as I often do) and wondered if what is true for humans is true for birds. Birds metabolize much faster than humans so that could be a factor. I wondered what birds do in the wild when streams freeze over, as you said. So bottom line, regarding OP's question: I don't know, for quail.

I was watching a free-range group very closely. They appeared to get most of moisture intake through eating snow. They did not bother to approach water source out for dogs. The dog bowl is used by chickens when ground is dry.

The birds spread snow consumption over hours with most in morning.