Solar powered water container and heat source

[av8rwife]

Does anyone have any ideas using solar power for keeping a chicken waterer from freezing? What about using something solar powered for heat for the chickens?

 

[Bear Foot Farm]

It's not cost effective to use solar power to generate heat.

Heating a coop is rarely necessary anyway

It's far cheaper to just run electricity to the coop

 

[mikeinri]

You would need an oversized solar panel in order to store enough power in the battery overnight to keep the water from freezing. The cost would be crazy.

If you are going big and long term with the chickens you might look into a vacuum tube system and a mass water storage in the coop. This would keep the entire coop above 32 degrees overnight. Off the top of my head for parts you would be looking at 2-3k for the entire system. No other power source would be needed.

 

[av8rwife]

Thanks for the input. The reason I was asking is that we don't live on the property where our chickens are housed. I drive about 23 miles to check on them daily and was trying to see if there's an easier way during the winter. There will be times that I can't get to them and will have to depend on a local neighbor to tend to them for me. My husband wants to live "off the grid" when we eventually build a home on the land but that is several years away. So.....guess we'll just tough it out and see how they fair during the winter months here in NW Arkansas.