Thinking ahead to cold water for summer

[RenoHuskerDu]

I know it's the dead of winter, and many of us are thinking about how to keep our founts from freezing, but an idea just hit me. One of the suggestions I got was a submersible fish tank heater right in the 5-gallon nipple fount.

What if the same idea could be adapted to keep water cool in the summer? Our chickens suffer something fierce here in Texas summers. Has anybody figured out a cooling coil that goes right into the fount? It would need to be electric and not too fragile in case chickens climb up on the tubing etc.

 

[A_Fowl_Guy]

This is something I haven’t heard of. I just freeze 2 liter bottles and toss it in their waterer.

 

[RenoHuskerDu]

We did something like that with smaller founts, but once you go to 5-gal nipple founts, it spoils you. Now we only have to add water every 5 days. I'm thinking of a way to have that luxury in the summer.

 

[A_Fowl_Guy]

We did something like that with smaller founts, but once you go to 5-gal nipple founts, it spoils you. Now we only have to add water every 5 days. I'm thinking of a way to have that luxury in the summer.

I’m refilling my 5 gallon daily gravity font daily. 30 birds use it haha!

 

[RenoHuskerDu]

We only have 11 birds, and two 5-gal founts. Our trailer coop used to house 300 birds, said the seller. It has a 50-gallon tank with gravity feed. I have yet to use that. Sounds like what you need though!

 

[A_Fowl_Guy]

Oh I do! Same feeder and waterers for 30 birds for the last ten years.

 

[paneubert]

You could buy a chiller coil or probe for your waterer if you could figure out how to plumb it in. If you can use a fish tank heater (probably don't need a vacuum seal), then you can use a chiller. It would not be cheap (think at least 200-300 dollars), and I am not sure if it could even function outdoors. Most would suck in some dust or dirt and crap out on you. Plus they are not intended to be operating in high temps (summer outside), and therefore may not even be able to pull the water temp down very much since they are meant to be indoors where the temp is probably only in the mid 80's max. Many people in the saltwater fish tank world use chillers since the ideal tank temp is 78-80 degrees. So most people are only trying to chill maybe 5-10 degrees below ambient temp. And I can tell you a chiller that chills 10 degrees is one of the more expensive ones. The fact that you are only trying to chill 5 gallons helps though.

 

[Hdaw02]

I just use big ice cubes and add the once or twice a day and make sure the water they get is cold