Lets talk duck keeping in frigid temps

[HollowOfWisps]

I'm curious for those of you who have to live through the truly cold winter (I'm talking -20 and below at least) how do you keep pipes from bursting and buckets from freezing? Last winter was my first winter in cold cold temperatures when it got down to -30 degrees with -40 wind chill and stayed in the negatives for over a month. EVERYTHING froze. My bucket heaters, stock tank heaters, heated bowls nothing could keep up. I went to move my one heated bucket to refill it and the top half broke right off with the bottom of the bucket completely frozen to the ground.
I ended up having to hang heat lamps over my ducks water buckets (I'm not a fan of heat lamps, but I didn't have much choice). Even then the heat lamps only kept the middle of the water bucket from freezing it was still icy on the edges. With building a new duck barn obviously insulation is going to have to happen, but I'm also debating about having it set up with a heater and thermostat so I can keep the coop temperature just above freezing. Again I'm not saying heating to be hot I'm saying just enough to keep the pipes from bursting and buckets from freezing.
I don't think it helps that we live in a hollow/valley with very limited trees down here so the wind just blows right on through with nothing to stop it. Even by the time I went to collect eggs they were frozen solid and I do duck chores between 6:30-7am so it's not like the eggs were sitting very long. What does everyone else do when it gets crazy cold?

 

[Crazy Maizie]

We don't have sustained neg temps like that.
But, winter can definitely be an issue even with my midwest temps. Usually the ducks keep things moving enough that the water doesn't totally freeze (even with heaters), but I have had it happen as well.
I'm curious as to the pipes that you have? On a house they should be wrapped, but I'm thinking you mean in the run area?

 

[HollowOfWisps]

We don't have sustained neg temps like that.
But, winter can definitely be an issue even with my midwest temps. Usually the ducks keep things moving enough that the water doesn't totally freeze (even with heaters), but I have had it happen as well.
I'm curious as to the pipes that you have? On a house they should be wrapped, but I'm thinking you mean in the run area?

We are in the process of building a barn for the ducks and it will have running water. In the current barn the whole well room heated just above freezing, but not the rest of the barn. Otherwise we would have no water out there from pipes bursting and everything freezing over. We had problems even with the external pumps freezing so this spring we added a water pump inside the well room so we could get water in the barn.

 

[fatty and friends]

personally i don’t let my ducks outside when it is that cold, just my opinion. you can get those heated dog bowls, i’ve heard lots of people use those

 

[HollowOfWisps]

personally i don’t let my ducks outside when it is that cold, just my opinion. you can get those heated dog bowls, i’ve heard lots of people use those

They were locked in the barn and I had the heated dog bowls, but they froze too I'm thinking that I may have no choice, but build the new barn so that I can keep it just above freezing and let everyone hunker down inside.

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

personally i don’t let my ducks outside when it is that cold, just my opinion. you can get those heated dog bowls, i’ve heard lots of people use those

I'm from Iowa too, and it got so cold it still ices over in the dog water bowls.
I keep a 5 gallon bucket inside and fill it with very hot water and pour small amounts over the iced over bowls. It melts the top ice. I also use rubber bowls inside the sheds so I can pound the ice out of them and they don't break.

 

[HollowOfWisps]

I'm from Iowa too, and it got so cold it still ices over in the dog water bowls.
I keep a 5 gallon bucket inside and fill it with very hot water and pour small amounts over the iced over bowls. It melts the top ice. I also use rubber bowls inside the sheds so I can pound the ice out of them and they don't break.

Oooo I never thought about the rubber bowls so they don't break when de-icing, that's a great idea! You guys have some crazy winters here! We just moved in early this year and I was definitely not prepared for how cold the cold was here. I use to have to deal with lake effect weather from Canada and the snow shoe mountains, but I actually think it was warmer and the wind didn't cut through you like it does here

 

[BirdsBeesTrees]

Oooo I never thought about the rubber bowls so they don't break when de-icing, that's a great idea! You guys have some crazy winters here! We just moved in early this year and I was definitely not prepared for how cold the cold was here. I use to have to deal with lake effect weather from Canada and the snow shoe mountains, but I actually think it was warmer and the wind didn't cut through you like it does here

Yeah flat land, lots of wind. That's why we have hundreds of windmills here and tornadoes.

 

[Crazy Maizie]

I'm from Iowa too, and it got so cold it still ices over in the dog water bowls.
I keep a 5 gallon bucket inside and fill it with very hot water and pour small amounts over the iced over bowls. It melts the top ice. I also use rubber bowls inside the sheds so I can pound the ice out of them and they don't break.

I keep rubber bowls out in the run as well. They are the best for knocking out ice and not ruining anything.

 

[BullChick]

https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/alternate-method-to-prevent-water-freezing.73180/