Water freeze

[karlamaria]

It's in the coop, and it has gotten down to 35 below and water is fine. 60 watts. My coop is big and I have only 10 birds in it. I have rom for the tin can heater in there since some days I do not let my girls out when it's so bitter cold.

 

[chicken gal]

Is it hard to raise 10 chickens. I have six and I want more. I'm just a little to worried that there will be so much poop.

 

[karlamaria]

I have a small back yard, the coop and pen take up the first half and the other half we sit on lawn chairs and enjoy them all summer. We let them out, and they roam all day in the yard, then by evening we go around and pick up the poop lol. In the winter we have to leave them in the pen most of the time, so we laid down some real nice sand, and my son goes out every four days and uses a cat scoop and scoops theosophical. We found there was not more poop with the five we had then the ten we now have. We are getting
Its of eggs right now also. We had five but found the eggs were lacking in the winter or when they decided to slow down. I have a broody so we put eggs under her and she has the next laying girls. We will be giving away 4 girls in spring who will be turning two and letting mama brood 12 more eggs. ( we will keep 4 and give the other 8 away) we get the fertile eggs from a great gal who has a farm, and every time my broody goes into brood mode we set eggs under her. The 8 adult girls we have are our layers, the other 2 are her babies she hatched out 8 weeks ago. I gave the rest away but now realize it was a mistake, they would be laying by March and one is a rooster, if I kept all 9 chicks I could have kept the pullets and gave the roosters to the gal to eat. Now I will have to hatch out more in the spring and wait all summer to lay. Ugh will not make ths mistake again! I find if your wanting eggs like us it's good to rotate after a while. Right now I have 4 to go come spring, the other girls are only 9 months old . The best egg layers! RIR 's and brahama, and Easter egger. Eggs every day. Buff orphingtons are also now laying but they become broody way to much.

 

[WinterLadyAK]

It's in the coop, and it has gotten down to 35 below and water is fine. 60 watts. My coop is big and I have only 10 birds in it. I have rom for the tin can heater in there since some days I do not let my girls out when it's so bitter cold.

Thanks! I tried the cookie tin heater and water is still unfrozen this morning, though it only dropped down to -3F or so last night. Still hoping to keep it in the run but may move it inside as you do if it doesn't work outside at really cold temps.

 

[toofarout]

So far this winter I'm using a heated (50watt) dog bowl with one of those blue painters buckets as an insert. I have extra insert buckets to make cleaning up easier.
The water has stayed thawed. Outside temps have gone down to below -30F at my place but they had water. Nice. There is more evaporation than I would like, and stuff gets kicked in.
But it's easy to remove the inner bucket and change it out every few days. I add fresh water morning and evening.

Last winter I used a silicone oil pan heater between concrete pavers with a 1 gallon plastic waterer on top. The water would freeze at the upper sides in the reservior when the temps got lower.
That's why I decided to try the heated water bowl. Maybe I'll change back, maybe not.

It gets pretty cold often where I live. I'm in a valley behind a ridge and it's colder *and* I get no sun because of that ridge (Ester Dome) to warm things up during the day, so my animals get heat lamps, and heated water.

 

[lbrtyldy]

Trying the tin can heater for the first time tonight. Hope I find water and not ice in the AM!

 

[chicken gal]

It's in the coop, and it has gotten down to 35 below and water is fine. 60 watts. My coop is big and I have only 10 birds in it. I have rom for the tin can heater in there since some days I do not let my girls out when it's so bitter cold.

ONLY 60 WATT!!!!!!!!!! My chickens have 250!!!!

 

[karlamaria]

It's been great, the metal font stays full and clean atop the tin can heater for 4 days, every morning we take out a different font for the pen and I did such a wonderful job of covering and securing the pen the water has not froze during the day . So far a perfect winter! The first winter I used the dog bowl and bucket there was always messed up water, some days we cleaned it out 2 times. Now every 4 days. The font holds 3 gallons so between this one and the 3 gallon in the pen there is plenty of water.

 

[chicken gal]

What I heve to do is trade off water buckets. I have to take the bucket into my garage to thaw out. It's really annoying.

 

[karlamaria]

What I heve to do is trade off water buckets. I have to take the bucket into my garage to thaw out. It's really annoying.

How close is your coop to your garage? Can you hook up an extension cord? I did that last year, until I got. My coop wired for electricity.