Making a heated poultry drinker

[bigz1983]

I have a Harris farms free range easy fill 3.25 gallon poultry drinker.
Is it possible to make this into a heated poultry drinker for winter?

 

[Mosey2003]

I use those too and love them, but I use the 6.5 gallon. I've been pondering this myself. Harris Farms claims you can use a heated metal base with this waterer, but others have reported that the waterer melted when they did so. I'm thinking about getting a base and using a piece of something like thin rubber between the base and drinker. Will be interested to see other replies.

Of course, you can put a heater inside of this, like an aquarium or stock tank heater, but if it gets cold enough I'm pretty sure the water in the pan where they drink will freeze, so....

 

[bigz1983]

I use those too and love them, but I use the 6.5 gallon. I've been pondering this myself. Harris Farms claims you can use a heated metal base with this waterer, but others have reported that the waterer melted when they did so. I'm thinking about getting a base and using a piece of something like thin rubber between the base and drinker. Will be interested to see other replies.

Of course, you can put a heater inside of this, like an aquarium or stock tank heater, but if it gets cold enough I'm pretty sure the water in the pan where they drink will freeze, so....

I really like this drinker too..
Much easier to fill than standard drinker..
I saw a heated base that is plastic online.
I'm worried a metal one will melt it to.
I was thinking a piece of tin between might prevent that.

 

[Mosey2003]

I'm going to try to track down which specific one Harris Farms recommends, I've been meaning to do that.

 

[Mosey2003]

Well, the Harris Farms website redirects to Manna Pro, so they must own them. Here is the base, it does specifically say it is for these waterers. I'm a little concerned it says only down to 10 degrees though, that's nearly useless here. I wonder if I chucked a tank heater in the top that would make up the difference? Hmmm...
https://www.mannapro.com/products/poultry/drinkers/heated-drinker-base

 

[bigz1983]

Well, the Harris Farms website redirects to Manna Pro, so they must own them. Here is the base, it does specifically say it is for these waterers. I'm a little concerned it says only down to 10 degrees though, that's nearly useless here. I wonder if I chucked a tank heater in the top that would make up the difference? Hmmm...
https://www.mannapro.com/products/poultry/drinkers/heated-drinker-base

I'm from Michigan and it gets down to -30 sometimes.
Yeah a extra heater in the tank might be needed.

 

[Mosey2003]

I'm hoping to get this batch to use horizontal nipples. Then I can just use my big bucket and tank heater.