Ideas for heat using car battery and timer to go on at night

[Chicken of the Sea]

I put a angled reflective panel over the roost area in the winter and it works great. We have temps here in northern PA way past the zero mark, -28 last year. My coop is insulated with no hear source.

 

[MIKE555444]

Here are my thoughts but you won't like my suggestion.

You can buy a 250ft long Exterior 3-wire 18gauge electrical wire for $59. OR You can buy two temporary deep cycle batteries for $90 each. Even if you can make this work you will need to carry these back and forth all winter to keep them charged. I'd guess every day or two unless you invest in 4 batteries at $90 each and switch them out every few days. Although the 18 gauge wire is small for this job you could pull more amp over a 24 hour period than depleting the batteries that you will have to carry back and forth to keep charged.

Even if you install this electric wire up temporary it would be so much more cost effective than the bateries.

Good luck with what ever you decide.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
Gee, even though I think it's largely irrelevant to the o.p.'s needs I was getting excited on behalf of the many folks who want to run a plain ol' lightbulb for day-extending purposes... but then I saw the part where it is not rated for use at temperatures below freezing

Do you by any chance have any personal experience with this device, or ones like it, from which you could guess how likely it is to fail and at what temperature? Seeing as how virtually everyone who'd want to use it would need to use it below freezing (sometimes *lots* below freezing).

Thanks for any info, and thanks for the link,

Pat

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Why heat the whole coop.
Use a flashlight bulb dropped on the waterier to keep it from freezing up. They run on 12V an pull less than a watt.
Then make your roosts out of metal pipe an circulate heated air threw them. Ya only need a PC fan, a house thermostat, a 1157 taillight bulb an a box to put it in. The low element is about 5 watts an should be on about half the time. Also there is no need to change anything over to run on 110V DC.

At least a 6 watt solar cell, 12 would be better.
And at least one good deep-cycle battery with over 150 amp hours rating.

 

[teach1rusl]

Quote:
Saw an earlier poster mention this. I just ordered the Thermo Cube...temperature controlled plug in device. On at 35 degrees, off at 45 degrees. They have diff. models with different ranges. I'm just going to plug my heat lamp into it...at least this winter. My chicks will be about 12 weeks when the really cold weather hits, and these are my first chickens. So I'm probably being overprotective. But it's better than worrying all night when the temps are scraping the bottom of the barrel.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
I totally 100% agree with the first part of this post, about why heat the whole coop; but I have to say that there is absolutely no need whatsoever for heated roosts, that's what chickens have FEATHERS for

As long as they have a warm enough surface to walk around on during the day (i.e. there's a good layer of bedding, and they're not forced to hang out on bare frozen earth or ice all day) and they have a wide roost (at least the wide side of a 2x4), you are not going to get frostbitten toes.

Pat

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

i agree that heat is not needed but some people want to. To me (if you chose to add heat) adding heat under the bird where it rises up threw the bird makes more sense. Fact is no matter how insulated your coop is if you have enough ventilation then your heat floats away. If you add the heat under the bird they get to feel it without you having to use hundreds of watts of electricity.

 

[Chris09]

rebelcowboysnb: Use a flashlight bulb dropped on the waterier to keep it from freezing up

That might work in GA but I don't think that is going to work in -20 weather like the OP had poster... I love in Ohio and last year I had a 250 watt heat bulb sitting right on top of a metal chicken watering fountain and it still froze up...

Chris​

 

[rebelcowboysnb]

Over not in....
A bulb turns electricity in to 3 things. About 90% (conduction)heat energy that floats up away from your waterier by convection, about 5% light energy that does nothing for you an about 5% (if that) radiant heat energy. Assuming you can get all of that radiant heat to hit the water (which ya cant) then you would have about 12 watts of energy entering the water. In reality water does not like to collect radiant heat at all because its clear an much of the radiant heat hits somewhere else besides the water you may be getting 1 or 2 watts of heat energy in the water. If you put a bulb in the water at least 90% of its wattage gets transferred in to heat that will actually inter the water. A bulb in water will keep it from freezing. No matter how cold it gets it should at least keep a drinking hole over the bulb an if it dont then step up the bulb size. In Ohio it may take something like a 5 watt tail light bulb.


In Ga painting the waterier black an putting it in the sun is usually enough.

 

[patandchickens]

Quote:
It's likely to take more than that -- the 3-gal fonts they sell with the heating element built into the base (so it is embedded in thin plastic that is in direct contact with the water in the font) draw something like 100-125 watts (I forget exactly).

When people make cookie-tin or cinderblock-type DIY heated waterer bases, I've never heard of anyone using less than a 20-40w bulb and that will not do the trick in serious cold.

So it may take more wattage than in Georgia would seem likely

Pat