Question about water and freezing temps?

[Miss Lydia]

She's better I think stiff this a.m. The winds gone so that's a plus nobody wanted to come out today except Butter who was highly upset when she climbed her pool steps to realize she's only going to ice skate today why she would attempt to swim in freezing weather is beyond me.

The wind is suppose to die down here I hope it does, none of mine even have pools set up right now, but I did take out a 3 gallon bucket and my geese bathed in it and had frozen neck and head feathers.

They just don't feel the cold like we do I guess. I do think some mind it more than others but I can tell ya I put mine up early again today and no one minded.I hope your lil one gets okay and our temps start to moderate soon.

 

[wordgirl]

I'm from MN, where it can get very cold (these past few days have been brutal - we got up to 0 or 1 degree this afternoon for the first time in almost three days!). My ducks (Anconas) use a heated bucket, and I've never taken it away at night. They dunk their heads in and splash around even on cold days, which ends up with frozen water droplets on their back and in their tails when it's really cold. Silly duckies! It looks awful, but they seem to be okay with the ice on themselves.

We actually just moved them into their new coop, which is insulated and which we have been heating on the very cold days/nights, and there's no more ice on their backs, which makes me happy, but they survived all last winter with the ice and came out fine. Ducks are well-built for the cold. I'm definitely also a overprotective mother about my babies! We spent an extra half-hour on the new coop (at midnight) because I wanted to make sure we dulled the little screw pricks on the underside of the new duck ramp.

As for the buckets - the one I use is the 9-quart, I think from Allied Precision, and it's done a great job at keeping the water liquid. The ducks splash water up on the edges, which does freeze into big mounds of ice that I've had to knock off, but it went down into the below-zero's earlier in December (before the ducks moved into the warmer coop) and the bucket (and ducks).

Hope everybody and everyduckie's doing okay with the cold temps! It's getting a little tiring when just going out to feed the ducks I need to pile on the snow pants and the boots and the coat and the gloves and the hat...

Please come back summer!

 

[duckins]

I'm from MN, where it can get very cold (these past few days have been brutal - we got up to 0 or 1 degree this afternoon for the first time in almost three days!). My ducks (Anconas) use a heated bucket, and I've never taken it away at night. They dunk their heads in and splash around even on cold days, which ends up with frozen water droplets on their back and in their tails when it's really cold. Silly duckies! It looks awful, but they seem to be okay with the ice on themselves.   We actually just moved them into their new coop, which is insulated and which we have been heating on the very cold days/nights, and there's no more ice on their backs, which makes me happy, but they survived all last winter with the ice and came out fine. Ducks are well-built for the cold. I'm definitely also a overprotective mother about my babies! We spent an extra half-hour on the new coop (at midnight) because I wanted to make sure we dulled the little screw pricks on the underside of the new duck ramp. 

As for the buckets - the one I use is the 9-quart, I think from Allied Precision, and it's done a great job at keeping the water liquid. The ducks splash water up on the edges, which does freeze into big mounds of ice that I've had to knock off, but it went down into the below-zero's earlier in December (before the ducks moved into the warmer coop) and the bucket (and ducks).

Hope everybody and everyduckie's doing okay with the cold temps! It's getting a little tiring when just going out to feed the ducks I need to pile on the snow pants and the boots and the coat and the gloves and the hat...   Please come back summer!

Your temps sound brutal. Proud to say mine came threw like little troopers. I'm very pleased with my heated buckets. Hope things warm up for you soon.

 

[wordgirl]

Oh, good! Ducks are hardy little birds, aren't they?

How is your one who was a little worse for wear a couple days ago?

(And whoops! In my previous post, I meant to end that final sentence in the third paragraph "...and the bucket (and ducks) came through fine - the water stayed liquid and the ducks are still healthy.")

 

[ducksinarow]

I got a 2 gallon heated bucket from Rural King this past week. I love it. It kept the water from freezing at 1*. I did not want to use lighting for the ducks this year so I could let them have a break from laying. But with the temperatures we have been having I was just too worried about them not to plug it in. All of them were crowded into the little house with the heat lamp. So I guess they liked it. They still are not laying and that is fine. I have kept them penned up this week and the funny thing is that they are not eating as much as normal. I thought they would have eaten me out of house and home this week but no. I hope it warms ups soon also.