I use a a 5gal bucket with nipples on the bottom and a 250watt stock tank deicer. I had no problems with my water freezing up last winter, only the the nipples would ice up a little on really cold days, but all I had to do was give them a tap to break the ice up and they'd work for the rest of the day. I got the deicers from fleetfarm during their black friday sale last year, which made them $25/ea I think. They're thermostatically controlled, so they use very little power as well.
I did see on a facebook post where someone (in Northern OH I think) had made a cookie-tin heater and put one of those teracotta/clay pot saucers over it and then set their plastic bell style waterer on top of it for winter.
My egg production has fallen by half in the past week. I have lights coming on for an extra 2 hours each morning, but I went from getting 8-10 eggs/day to 6 from 15 hens. Only one is visibly molting still, so they've either started "resting" or I need to have the lights come on earlier (which means the roosters will start crowing earlier) and extend the day a little more. I've got demand for almost twice as many eggs as I'm getting right now, which is very frustrating! My 15 pullets need to hurry up and start laying already! They're almost all in the 18-25 week range now, and some of them are really starting to pink up, but I think I may have to put a timer in that coop as well or I'll probably end up feeding them for a year before I get any eggs!
DH went hunting with our oldest son (he's 8) last night was was able to take a nice little doe. DS has been hunting off and on with DH for the past 2 years and this was the first time he was there when a deer was taken. Very exciting for them, and I'm happy we're putting more meat in the freezer!
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