Pictures of winter waterers & how you handle?

[Going Quackers]

With the buckets being kind of deep, how do your ducks actually get water from there at all?

Well i wouldn't recommend buckets for really young(ie; small) ducks but most people aren't using heated buckets with ducklings. For smaller ducks in general (calls for instance) i'd probably recommend heated bowls vs buckets.

Anyways, i have 4 littler ones(6.5mths & 4.5mths) and they reach the 2Gal just fine.

 

[HollyDuckFarmer]

I hope my reply displays properly!

In regards to the larger buckets, I have a set up exactly like Wynette's (thanks again for the pics and inspiration, BTW!) and setting the bucket down inside the pallet like that worked to raise the ducks by lowering the bucket. Does that make sense? All of my ducks are larger adult sized, so they get in for water with no problems. Of course, they aren't able to get way down to the bottom of the bucket, but I just keep an eye of the water level and top it off or dump and change if needed. Now if i thought they werent getting enough water with this set up, i would first supplement with the extra 1 gal bell waterers that i have, or perhaps I'd add a brick to provide them a step up.

No slush at all today, must've just been one of those things. I has the "lid" like Miss Lydia, but after observing, I felt like having the lid just made it difficult for more than 2 birds to drink at a time, so I removed it. So far no problems at all with anybody getting in, however, when it was above freezing I was still providing a small oil pan (never used for oil!) for playing in.

One last thing, after I first implemented this, one of the Ladies decided it was a great place to lay. What was happening was the eggs were dropping down to the Earth floor below the pallet. Do if you choose to do this, be careful with those jigsaw cuts.

 

[DuckieTam]

I know most of you have found a solution but I thought I would share what I use. Mine is inside the coop, so this works for indoor applications. This is a 5 gal bucket with 1/4" holes drilled into the top rim, and a water tub intended for a large planter. We fill the bucket up then turn it upside down in the tray and it dispenses water all day I replace the water about every other day. For winter I have a heat lamp that sits about 3 ft off the floor plugged into one of those heat sensitive receptacles (kicks on at 35 degrees off at 42 degrees), so far this set up has kept the water in the tub thawed, I will find frozen water on the outside of the tub, but not in it. Because it has been freezing lately I take the whole thing inside wash it out, fill it up with luke warm water and set it back up (they seem to love the warm water just like they like ice water in the summer time).

My hubby also recently ran electricity out to my coop so we have lights and outlets for the heat lamps.

 

[Wynette]

Thanks for the pic, DuckieTam!

Okay, so I finally got pics of what DH did to make it a whole heck of a lot easier for me to fill & dump the duck water for the winter. YEA! I hope you can see from the pics what he did. I'm not known for my picture-taking ability!

Okay, here is what we started with. The "roof" over the waterer is simply to keep the snow/sleet/ice out of it. Anyway, note that the roof is solid (we used spare wood, which is why a section of it is painted gray. I'll paint it red to match the coop in the summer). Note also that there is a support for the roof to the far right, up against the wooden windbreak section of plywood.



Here is the roof now - DH removed the roof and cut it paralell to the coop, then added 2 hinges:



Here is the roof flipped up so you can see how it rests, when it's in the "down" position, on the support to the right:



And here is DH's ingenious idea to hold the roof up while I'm filling/dumping the water. LOVE IT! Super duper basic & does the job. My run is covered with chicken wire, so there is a 2x4 across the top right over the roof. DH simply put a screw in the roof and one in the 2x4!



To get a better idea, here is the run before the winter waterer was added - the winter waterer is to the far right of the pophole door. You can also see a bit of their pond to the left; it's just a preformed plastic pond, and we'll be installing it pretty much where it sits, then adding an additional run right beside the current one. Both runs will be separated and they'll have access to the pond for a few hours each day; this way, the entire current run won't be a muddy, mucky mess all summer, and the grass will last longer in the new run! I'm also planning on planting a large ornamental grass at the end of the current run as well. Don't know how long it will last, but I'm moving it from the front of my house - it's probably 6' high almost and has pretty stiff leaves, so maybe it'll hold up to ducks!

 

[cluckcluckgirl]

Here's our water in the wintertime. It's half of a 50 gallon drum/barrel filled with water and it has a wooden barrier around it to prevent the ducks from pooping in their water in the winter. This seemed like the only option for us. Oh, and it has a pond heater in it too.

 

[Wynette]

Oh, cluckclick, that looks like a great idea - do you have any actual pics?

 

[cluckcluckgirl]

Currently, I don't but I can take some soon.

 

[DuckieTam]

Your welcome

I will say that my application does not work if the temps get too cold. We had temps dipping to -22F over the past week and the water froze as solid as a rock. It worked great until the temps got that cold.