show me your winter waterer!

[phaethona]

hi guys! well colder temps are upon us

It's been just below freezing at night here for the last 2 nights. So, this weekend I'm gonna "winterize"
I have a bunch of cardboard I got for free(pm me if you'd like to how I got it, pretty clever I thought) that I'm going to staple up to the walls, and I'm going to go get a couple bales of shavings to start deep litter method. which leads me to a dilema,
over the summer I kept the shavings down to about 2-3 inches, and I have a plastic waterer sitting up on 2 paver stones so they can't kick shavings into it. This winter, I am NOT going to run out every couple of hours switching out frozen waterers, so I need to get a metal one in there and put a warmer underneath it. but, how do I situate the waterer so that it's high enough to keep clean and stable, considering that the shavings will be much deeper?

here's what it looks like at the moment(yes I know it's a pooey mess in there, that's why I'm spending time on it this weekend)

Any ideas, suggestions or photos would be GREATLY appreciated because I have no idea how I'm going to do this...

Thanks!

 

[Egghead_Jr]

Earlier there was a nifty water heater pan shown with a small light bulb inside a cookie tin.

THis or one that you buy is still problamatic to getting it off the floor to prevent the chickens contaminating and possible overheating of pine shavings...

If your going to buy a galvanized waterer and possibly purchase a heater pan for it then why not simply buy the 3 gal. plastic heated waterer that you can hang from the ceiling like your feeder. They are 35 bucks plus shipping online. Your galv. waterer is going to cost you $30 anyway.

 

[phaethona]

Quote:
I didn't know they made plastic heated waterers. i do have a metal one already that I haven't been using, so I could go either way.

I guess I'm wondering how to keep it up high enough so it stays clean, and I'm afraid that hanging it would mean spills every time it got bumped

I do have more paver stones, so maybe it'd be easiest to just add a couple more

 

[Ridgerunner]

Build a platform that has about 12" or more free space all around the waterer. Put the platform one or 2 feet above the top of your deep litter. Securely fasten your waterer to the platform. You may need to hang something over the waterer to keep them from perching on it. Keep the platform low enough so they don't want to roost there instead of on the roosts.

 

[FlashPointFarm]

I just use black rubber pans, crack the ice out of them morning and night. They have clean water all the time since the ice cleans them out. I have a lot of coops though and don't want to pay to heat that many waterers.

 

[redfeather]

I wonder if it would work to say, put a 2-10 gallon fish aquarium heater inside the water container? I would imagine that would keep it from reaching freezing point.... but I dunno, maybe not.


I personally use a galvanized waterer, and I just move the chicken's timed light (a 60 watt bulb with the bell housing, you know, like used for heatlamps) really close to the water, and take it off the timer, leaving it on 24/7. I don't know if that is the most economical, but it provides two things to my birds. a. being drinkable, unfrozen water, and b. being light throughout the winter. They usually pick up sometime in december after their molt and lay hard through the rest of the winter.

 

[LynneP]

This is what we do- the rubber stock bowl keeps their bottoms outwards to prevent soiling the water and helps to insulate the bowl. Some people put plastic 1 gal waterers in the electric bowl-

We're well into winterizing- snow boards up, vinyl on a windward door in the run, using pop door only, not the big door to the run. And building a second coop and run in the barn.

 

[Ema]

Quote:
we did this with the aquarium heater which cost only 12 bucks at walmart and I am just waiting on Dh to help me post pics, I am completely lost when trying to post pics on here. I promised someone else I would post the instructions on how we did it too. just haven't had the time as of yet but I will this weekend. I now have perfect temp water for my chickens at the low cost of 12 bucks

 

[swimmer]

Heated dog bowl from Wal Mart.com. $18.00 shipped site to store for free. Set that up on some bricks and I'm set. Sorry, no pictures, but I'm sure you can picture it.

 

[sunflowerenvy]

iam using a cookie tin heater under my galvanized waterer, and keeping my hay n chippes away from the cookie tin heaterAND i put a cement blk to raise it off the floor

cookie tin heater by hinkjc
https://www.backyardchickens.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=107951