Ideas for keeping water thawed, WITHOUT a power source?

Noymira

Songster
8 Years
Mar 9, 2011
978
5
121
Chittenden County, VT
I've been searching the forum for ideas on keeping water thawed, and find lots of great ones for those with electricity in their coops, but we cannot get electricity where our coop is. It's about 200 feet from our house, over a stream.

I have some supplies left over from the turkeys my brother used to raise seasonally. He sat the waterer on top of that large pot turned over, to put it up to height of a full grown turkey. But I was wondering if raising the waterer off the ground would help keep it thawed longer, or freeze faster? Obviously I'd have to find something lower for the chickens if I raised it off the coop floor. I was thinking of pavers or brick, do you think that would help? Is a cinder block too tall (we have a couple of these lying around)?
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Any other ideas to use insulation on this in a way the chickens won't eat? how cold does it need to be before water freezes inside your coops? We will be insulating ours.

If need be I'll just haul warm water as needed in the coldest weather, but figured if there was something else I could do I would try it!

Edited for my spelling mistakes....
 
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A friend of mine in Montana uses an old plastic cooler, the kind that hold 9 cans or so. It does seem to help, but still needs daily attention.
 
Why over look the obvious solution: heat it with a flame. You could use glass mantles like they use in propane lanterns; they have advantage because they are not blown out by wind, but they need constant replacing. You could even use a camping stove on low, attached to a large tank. but this is how I would do it.

Go to walmart, and buy a kerosene lantern, they cost like $10. Use the wick mechanism. Attach it to a larger fuel tank. Your fuel container MUST be metal. You may have to do a little searching and engineering to get one, but in my experience, a gallon will last more than a day on low. You can test it by seeing how long the lantern burns with a set amount of fuel, and then doing a bit of math. Your fuel container MUST be metal. Make a wind shield with sheet metal, making sure to leave ventilation for oxygen. Place a metal bucket on top of the wind shield/lantern unit. Make sure everything is low enough for the chickens to get to it, or make some sort of step up, keeping in mind all the ways your chickens can get burned. if you keep enough water in it, it will never get too hot. Keep the flame low. Hell, if your not really handy I have another idea for you.

Get a small aluminum pie pan (less than normal size, or a small loaf pan), some tealight candles, 10-20 wood blocks (slightly taller than the pie pan), a metal dog dish, and alot of paraffin wax (drugstores sell it). Remove the aluminum sheath from the tea light and pull the wick out of the candle (it's really ez). Place the wick-holder in the center of the pie pan and secure it in place with a little bit of glue. Melt the wax on the stove, under very, very low heat. Let it sit a bit to get slightly thick and pour it into the pan, so it doesn't compleatly cover the wick. Congrads, you have a big candle. Put the candle on the ground, with some cardboard underneath to insulate it. place the blocks all around to candle to block the wind and hold up the bowl. place the bowl on top after you light the candle. make new candles as needed.

I would just bite the bullet and run an electrical line. Trouble you will go through trying to keep any system running, the cost, and the maintenance is nothing compared to running an electrical line. 200 feet of electrical cable is pretty cheap, especially if you figure out how to wire it yourself. Buy a book on electrical wiring; you'll be surprised how often you use that knowledge. Well insulated cable can go trough the stream or in the trees- your not looking for a solution that will last forever. If that is still impossible, then I suggest a solar/wind system or a generator. But really, run a power line
sorry
 
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I don't have electricity in my coop and my water freezes. My solution is to have two waterers and bring one in every night to defrost and just put it out again in the morning, and put the other one out in the afternoon. There is no light in the coop so it doesn't matter if the water freezes during the night as long as I put the defrosted one out first thing in the morning so they have water when they wake up and are thirsty.
 

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