Keeping water from freezing in -degree weather

[Diannastarr]

Last year was my first year of having birds for the winter. We live in Saskatchewan Canada and our temps go down to -40. We had 40 guineas and 5 chickens and I didn't know what to use for water. I bought a heated dog water bowl that holds a gallon of water. It cost $25 and worked wonderful all winter. This year we have 25 chickens and 25 guineas and I will use 2 dog bowls. They are great because they have a thermostat that shuts off when it warms up.

excellent idea....!!!!

and a safe one to...!!!

thanks for that info...!!!

 

[274255]

excellent idea....!!!!

and a safe one to...!!!

thanks for that info...!!!

Thanks
I forgot to mention that I put the water bowl about 4 inches off the floor on a cement block that we have. That way they don't get as much straw etc in the water and most drips stayed/froze on the cement block.

 

[Sportill]

Any brilliant ideas for keeping the water from freezing if you don't have electricity? Battery powered heat? My hens have been fine for several years with no extra heat or light (in Connecticut) but bringing water down the field for them twice a day is a chore.

 

[NTBugtraq]

Any brilliant ideas for keeping the water from freezing if you don't have electricity? Battery powered heat? My hens have been fine for several years with no extra heat or light (in Connecticut) but bringing water down the field for them twice a day is a chore.

There are lots of small solar panels available that would easily supply enough power for a light-bulb or reasonably wattage dog bowl heater. Just make sure you mount it on a high enough point that snow cannot cover the face of it.

Something I have not tried, but might work, is to put the watering container on something like a "see saw". One of the keys to preventing water from freezing is to keep it moving, this is why boats use bubblers around them to stop ice from freezing around them. If you put a dowl under the middle of a board, upon which your watering container is sitting, the chickens themselves should be able to cause it to move from one side to the other. If they do that enough, ice won't stay formed. The dowel doesn't have to be thicker than a pencil. Just a random thought...;-] GL

 

[beanschickens]

Hi, Here is my homemade anti-freeze chicken waterer.

a flue block
12x12 slate tile (holds heat nicely)
light fixture
60 watt bulb







Works great during the cold Virginia winter.

 

[NTBugtraq]

I have no experience in this matter, beyond previously keeping my pond's waterfall running all winter. Moving water certainly does not freeze, although spray does (thus is the extent of my waterfall experience). I currently have 30 chickens entering their 10th week in my entirely new coop. The water is currently in the 24' roofed run, and I have 2 x 250W heat lamps in the coop itself. They're on a timer that ensures there is 16 hours of "light" per day.

I intend to move 1 light directly over the water container. I had a sun room with these "heat lamps" before, and their infra-red light heats only what it touches...iows, it doesn't heat air. So the trick is to keep it high enough that it doesn't try to heat the mulch on the floor, only the watering container. To that end, I'm making a concrete light box to sit the watering container on. I won't be putting a bulb in it, unless I find the above lighting isn't sufficient to keep things from freezing. Should that happen, my plan is to move the heat lamp bulb into the concrete lightbox and heat from below.

Finally, just to make a comment about the CFL/LED/Cords/Liability comments. Whatever you do, things must be appropriately sized. You can't put a 250W bulb in a socket intended only to handle 150W. You can't use cord intended for 60W lights for 250W IRs. You can't just stick a halogen bulb in an incandescent fixture. Please don't think these technologies are all interchangeable in the same devices, many are not. You must take responsibility for your own risks, and therefore be sure you know you can before you try. If the only answers you get are, in your opinion, politically correct but possibly not true, you, and only you, must learn how to know the truth.

BTW, fish tank heaters have a toxic warning because of the mercury in the thermostats....they break in the water and you might have mercury in your water. Same would be true if they broke in your chicken watering container.

 

[NTBugtraq]

Does anyone use automatic watering solutions, and if so, how do you keep them from freezing...including the hose from the tap to the place the chickens get the water?

 

[MeepBeep]

You can't just stick a halogen bulb in an incandescent fixture.

The new halogen bulbs are direct drop in replacements for incandescent bulbs, just like incandescents pay attention to the wattage, don't put a 53W halogen (75w incandescent replacement) in a fixture rated for 40W incandecents, beyond that you can just stick them in...

http://www.gelighting.com/LightingW...hlights/energy-efficient-soft-white/index.jsp

 

[Kris64]

I don't have electricity outside. One friend suggested adding salt to the water, but that doesn't sound healthy for the chickens. Any other ideas that keep water liquid without the use of electricity? Maybe something with batteries??

 

[MeepBeep]

I don't have electricity outside. One friend suggested adding salt to the water, but that doesn't sound healthy for the chickens. Any other ideas that keep water liquid without the use of electricity? Maybe something with batteries??

Unless you have a huge bank of big (car battery or larger) you will not be able to keep any volume of water liquid under battery power for long, but it can be done...

To give you an idea, a standard car battery has about 45 amp/hours of power (bigger ones about 75 amp/hours) a very small bird bath heater is about 50 Watts @ 110 Volts or about .45 watts, while a decent sized heater is about 200 Watts @ 110 Volts, or about 1.8 Amps...

Now if you are using an inverter that converts the 12 Volts DC to 110 Volts AC to run the heater there is a loss, a good estimate is about a 25% loss...

So with that said using an inverter and a car battery and a little math, assuming best case scenarios (rare in the real world)...

A 45Ah car battery running a 50W heater should last about 3 days...
A 75Ah car battery running a 200W heater should last just over a day...

Now that assumes the heater is on all the time, one with a thermostat will last longer, but you also have to factor in cold batteries never perform as well as warm ones, and batteries progressively lose capacity with age, so to be blunt I would halve the run times above if you were designing a battery system to be on the safe side...

So realistically with two car batteries, an inverter and a smaller 50W heater you could keep a small volume of water liquid as long as you swapped out (bringing one in for charging and taking a fresh one out) the batteries every two days or so...

An extension would would likely be a better option...