INDIANA BYC'ers HERE!

[lilmizscareall]

Pullet or cockerel
Need your help making a guess, she's about 4-6 months old, maybe?

and for fun, they're checking each other out. That's my 13+ house cat. She still plays like a kitten, but I think shes relatively retired from hunting. She shares her kitty litter area with the brooders... Could care less about the ducklings, etc.

 

[kabhyper1]

Pullet or cockerel

Need your help making a guess, she's about 4-6 months old, maybe?





and for fun, they're checking each other out. That's my 13+ house cat. She still plays like a kitten, but I think shes relatively retired from hunting. She shares her kitty litter area with the brooders... Could care less about the ducklings, etc.

thats a girl.

 

[PeacefulWalls]

I'm pretty careful to use "restricted opening" waterers so that wattles don't hang in the water to get frostbite and so that there is no danger of one of them getting feet into the waterer resulting in frostbite on the legs and feet. (Getting into a bucket or bowl of water by mistake is more common than you'd think.)

I finally ended up using the quart heated dog bowl with a "canning jar chick waterer" on top. (If you weren't concerned about frostbite you could just use the bowls but I just won't take the risk.) I have 2 of these and often put a 3rd source of water outside.

The bowls are filled with grit, then filled with water to conduct the heat to the waterer above. Then I sit the waterer on top. Using a 5 lb. honey jar which holds about 1/2 gallon of water. I bring them in at night and put them out in the morning. They have stayed unfrozen all day long and have prevented frostbite nicely.

I must say I've tried about 4 different systems for winter over time and this one has actually worked the best.





I've said it before, but I don't like the extra water that drops from the nipples. In the video you can see how the guy had to put troughs under them to catch that water. I am concerned about the extra water that they release dropping down the wattles and the front of the bird and causing frostbite. Not to mention stepping in the wet under them either in the bedding or the troughs causing frostbite.

I LOVE the circulating system to keep the water from freezing. If I had lots of birds and a large housing, I have had all kinds of things in my mind about how I'd use that circulating system to keep the water thawed during the winter without using the nipples. Right now my housing is small so I continue to take water out each morning.

I've been meaning to post for some time that I started using your idea since the arctic air arrived in january & it's worked really well. Of course I didn't get around to finding a heated dog dish until the day before the subzero weather was to hit. Luckily BigR had some bowls left. They were larger than yours, so I had to put an aluminum pie pan on top of the rocks (used small rocks instead of grit since we have an abundance of them). The waterer sits on the pie pan. We have had water freeze up in the jar when it was super cold, but whatever water was in the trays was unfrozen. We also used one of our honey jars until it got dropped

so we're using a quart jar again. Along with this we also are putting out a fresh waterer twice a day. We bring the frozen ones inside to thaw in the utility sink until it's time to swap them out again. Definitely more work than in the summer, but at least we've been able to keep fresh water going through the winter. Thanks for posting your great idea for the heated dog dish!!!

 

[browncow15]

I've been meaning to post for some time that I started using your idea since the arctic air arrived in january & it's worked really well. Of course I didn't get around to finding a heated dog dish until the day before the subzero weather was to hit.  Luckily BigR had some bowls left.  They were larger than yours, so I had to put an aluminum pie pan on top of the rocks (used small rocks instead of grit since we have an abundance of them).  The waterer sits on the pie pan.  We have had water freeze up in the jar when it was super cold, but whatever water was in the trays was unfrozen.  We also used one of our honey jars until it got dropped   so we're using a quart jar again.  Along with this we also are putting out a fresh waterer twice a day.  We bring the frozen ones inside to thaw in the utility sink until it's time to swap them out again.  Definitely more work than in the summer, but at least we've been able to keep fresh water going through the winter.  Thanks for posting your great idea for the heated dog dish!!!

Hum I wonder if landscaping rocks would work? Or would they be to big? I've just been carring water out several times a day because I'm home but it would be nice to do something different next year! I bought a fish tank heater but it doesn't work with my setup. I have a five gal bucket with a lid and a small hole in the side then the bucket sits in an oil pan.

 

[ellymayRans]

Would anyone have a SF (Salmon Favorelle) roo they need to find a home for?

 

[pginsber]

M2H posted: bought some live mealworms today at the pet store-- $6 for one hundred (like they counted them!) They were the smallest mealworms I've ever seen. I know they're supposed to mainly eat their chick food, but I've tried freeze dried ones before to entice them closer, but they weren't interested.

Your mealworm story made me laugh. We get shipments of 5000 mealworms for our various birds. Unfortunately, one of our shipments arrived during the polar vortex and even though we got the box into the house instantly upon arrival, most of the critters were not moving. The Robin we feed turned her nose up at the dead worms, but the hens LOVED them!

 

[Leahs Mom]

Quote: You would want to use a gravel consistency so that your waterer can kind-of "snuggle" down into it. I just used grit because I had a 50 lb bag of grit and I can dry it at the end of the season and still feed it to the birds! (BTW...buying in the 50 lb bag is cheaper where I get it than getting those little bags at TSC) If I had something was around like PW has I would have just used that.

The quart bowls work so well because there is nothing between the waterer base and the water/gravel. I can leave those out all day. On the coldest days it begins to freeze slowly from the top down, but never more than about 1-2" at most is frozen on the top. Having the base in that water and gravel is a real plus to keep it open the whole time.

I did try using sand instead of gravel the first time. Didn't work.

 

[Leahs Mom]

Oh...just thought of another idea for your bucket @browncow15 Instead of using the oil pan, could your bucket just sit right into the larger heated dog bowl with enough room around it for the water to be right in the dog bowl? Or maybe finding a bucket that would fit in one. That would take care of it in one step.

Only thing I don't like about that is that if you want to clean out the bowl you have to unplug it and take it in and that's a hassle. But you would only have to do that every once in awhile. You could just take out an empty container to dump the water from the dog bowl into then wipe out the bowl with a clean towel instead of hauling the whole thing in.

 

[Leahs Mom]

M2H posted: bought some live mealworms today at the pet store-- $6 for one hundred (like they counted them!) They were the smallest mealworms I've ever seen. I know they're supposed to mainly eat their chick food, but I've tried freeze dried ones before to entice them closer, but they weren't interested.

Your mealworm story made me laugh. We get shipments of 5000 mealworms for our various birds. Unfortunately, one of our shipments arrived during the polar vortex and even though we got the box into the house instantly upon arrival, most of the critters were not moving. The Robin we feed turned her nose up at the dead worms, but the hens LOVED them!

Where are you getting yours? I looked into doing that for my birds but the price per lb. that I could find in bulk, raised in US was more than just giving them ground beef!

 

[pginsber]

Where are you getting yours?  I looked into doing that for my birds but the price per lb. that I could find in bulk, raised in US was more than just giving them ground beef!

When you put it that way, I've got no good defense. I'm sure it is cheaper by the pound to feed virtually any cut of beef.
This Robin we feed won't eat dead worms or bugs. She's spoiled!
We use Petco.com and get 5000 large for $37.