INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[weezerfish]

Oh...forgot to say that our furnace quit working.

Oddly enough, we were scheduled for yearly maintenance this afternoon. Anyhow, they should come sometime. Hubby is setting up a kerosine heater in the basement to keep things from freezing. It's 60F in here right now which isn't a big deal. But with -20 outside it could decline pretty quickly. Since we don't know when they'll show up, it made sense to set up the heater.

Hope it works. We got it as an emergency item about 6 years ago and have never taken it out of the box. Guess we'll find out

Great timing on the maintenance call! Hope you got your heat back on!

 

[pginsber]

The heat tape on our nipple waterer stopped working during the cold snap.
I learned last year to always keep a spare floating tank heater and heat tape for JUST this purpose. Within 30 mins, water was flowing again. Very grateful!

 

[weezerfish]

The heat tape on our nipple waterer stopped working during the cold snap.
I learned last year to always keep a spare floating tank heater and heat tape for JUST this purpose. Within 30 mins, water was flowing again. Very grateful!

I need to figure something different out for my water. was doing the upside down heated water bowl, but it doesn't seem to be keeping up this winter. I could do without the extra trips to the coop to give them water multiple times a day.

 

[Finnie]

Please click on the following quote so you can see the photos of my waterer.

I use a kitty litter bucket with horizontal nipples and a small fish tank heater mounted inside. I plug it into a thermocube so the heater only turns on when it's needed.


I also have a blue heated dog water dish that perfectly fits a chicken water fount.



Blue dish is from TSC, green waterer is from Amazon or Petco, depending on which has the better price. It also comes in a taller size which has the same diameter green part, but holds more water.

I love both of them.

Did you have any issues with the water freezing inside the jar where it sticks above the bowl?

Most of the time not. Usually just being in contact with the melted water at the bottom keeps the whole thing melted. Sometimes the very top surface of the water would freeze and stick up there while the rest of the water continued to get drank. And if it gets really cold enough, there can be a whole block of ice up in there, but I don't remember it happening enough times that it was a problem. With that size waterer, it needed to be refilled once every day or two anyway, so I think it worked out to just needing refilling a little sooner when it froze up. I've been surprised at how well the reservoir stays melted. It basically doubles the capacity of the blue bowl, which I sometimes use without the reservoir.

I dug up these old posts to give an update on how my waterer has been working (or NOT) in these super low temperatures.

Turns out, that the green fount part is more of a hindrance these past couple of days because the blue heated part can't keep up with below zero temps. Not only did the water in the fount reservoir freeze, but a ring of ice froze all around it too. I ended up removing the green fount, and just using the heated water dish by itself. That works very well to keep the water melted, but unfortunately, a few of my roosters now have some pretty bad frostbite on their wattles.

As far as the chicken nipple waterers go, I have had to chip the ice out of the nipples themselves a few times so the birds could access the water.

So my methods work fine for a "normal" Indiana winter, but if I lived somewhere that had weeks/months at a time down at these temperatures, I would have to figure out a different system.

@weezerfish I would suggest just turning the heated water dish the right side up until this cold snap ends. Which should be today or tomorrow. If you don't have any roosters, you shouldn't have to worry about wattles dipping in the open water.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Furnace issue resolved

 

[Leahs Mom]

RE heating water...

I think the methods really depend a lot on the type/size of coop you have and where the water is.

For the past few years I've used a heat lamp on my waterers, but the heat lamp IS NOT IN WITH THE BIRDS. I have kennel pens in a barn and the heat lamp is triple hung outside the kennel pen pointing at the waterers. I also have it on a lamp dimmer switch so I can turn it up or down according to the temperature. I usually use a smaller heat bulb - 75 or 100 watt.

Before I used the heat lamp, I used the dog bowl with a waterer on top like @Finnie except that I would fill the bowl with grit to bring the waterer up to the top and put water in the grit to transfer the heat up. Worked very well except when it got down like this when the water at the top of the jar would begin to freeze. That didn't happen very often so it did great for the time I used it.

I continue to use the chick sized waterers in the winter as they keep wattles out of the water so NO FROSTBITE. I will never give an open waterer in winter for that reason and also because... if chickens get scuffling around, as they do, one may fly into or step into the waterer causing profound frostbite on feet. It's not worth the possibility to me.

Since I have more birds this year I need 2 waterers. I use the 5lb honey jars which are appx 1/2 gallon each...you can see current setup below.

 

[JanetMarie]

My muscovy hen came back today. I opened the south facing barn door, and she was in the barn later. She was gone three (of the coldest) nights, and she looks okay.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

So, we've had a confirmed loss from the cold. I had an older EE given to me a few years back. All white and a flash of red on her chest. We named her Sunny. No idea of her age, I think she came from one of our members after several localities abolished chicken keeping. I don't know what happened, but my assumption is the cold and her age. Found her under the roost today . Sunny was a very timid hen, but she really came around with treats and a lot of work.
My sweet little Olive (my only olive egger) went missing this evening. Olive is very broody all the time, very hard to break. Lap chicken, so sweet and social. I'm hoping she will show up with chicks.
My feisty little Khaki duck, also very broody is missing. Last I saw her was right before the cold set in. This little lady would starve herself if she was penned up. Not a good mom at all, she broods eggs then ignores the babies. I normally follow her and take her eggs.

 

[Chaneys Ranch]

We had a very stressful afternoon, Remington my dog has become more a pet than a LGD. Dad let him out (I ask him not to) and he was off his tie out lead. All the fresh snow, Remi decided it was play time! I'm 100% against any dog being off lead unless they are contained in a fence. 4 of us trying to find him, and Dad was in tears very upset. I assured Dad its OK Remi just wanted to run and play. Lets not let him out like that again.

Remi had went over to our new neighbor's property. I grabbed his food dish and told him "time for dinner" and he came right in. Whew! I told our new neighbor Dads got our house cat Jax and our dog Remi for companionship. Apologized he was there, they thought he was too sweet. Its still not OK a stray dog can be a predator. I was very embarrassed and upset this happened. I've lost goats to stray dogs in the past. Remington is a gentle sweet dog, but this works both ways.

 

[weezerfish]

Aaaaaahhhhhh! Never in my life have I appreciated 28 degrees more than right now! Thinking about putting shorts on! LOL!