watering the chickens in the winter without useing a heated waterer

[blueseal]

i use a 3 gallon black rubber bucket . i break the ice out and put warm water in daily.

 

[JessaLynn]

That's what I do to

 

[vstoltzfus]

My method is very simple. I carry a bucket of water out in the morning to replace the one that froze overnight. I put the frozen one in the basement and carry it back out (with fresh water) at lunch. I'm going out to the coop anyway to collect eggs, so taking fresh water isn't a big deal. Then at night when I go to close the pop door, I take a fresh bucket of water out again.

 

[felidaet]

We normally don't have very cold weather but the last few days have not been above freezing. Nights have been around 10 degrees. When this cold spell started I hung a heat lamp about 1 foot above their 5 gallon waterer. It have not froze since I put up the heat lamp. I am using a 250 watt red bulb. I am anxious for temperatures to return to normal and turn it off (looks like it will be on Sunday).

 

[IN-farmgirl]

Hang a light bulb or heat lamp over the watererer.

 

[jhm47]

It will be around -15 here tonight. I use a heated base for my waterers, unless I want to be going out into the cold with warm water every half hour. LOL! Eggs freeze very quickly here in the winter. We still use them even though they are cracked.

 

[Tala]

Quote:
I have a 60watt black light bulb w/reflector hanging over my chicks' black rubber water dish. Black lights put out twice the amount of heat for the same amount of wattage, so costs less on my light bill. Plus the black light doesn't keep the chicks up.
I have two regular water buckets out on the fenceline that I just bust out as needed. The electrically controlled waterers are mainly so the birds can get a drink before I let them out of the coop in the morning - for MY convenience.

Last year I did like vstoltzfus does and just rotated the coop buckets and/or busted the big ones out, but at the time I was either unemployed or working night shift so it was no big deal for me to be awake at 7am when I got off work.

 

[chickenmeadow]

This frozen water thing was too much for me to keep up with & had to be done too often (while I'm at work 5 days a week feeling sorry for them), the new electric heated dog water bowl is perfect in the roofed area for my chickens. The best one I found is by SmartPet & has a non-chew cord covering, I put a fitting stainless steal dog pan dish in it for easier cleaning. The SmartPet one is navy blue, but it is not thermostaticly controlled; so, to that I have plugged into one of those thermostaticly controlled plugin that are on at 36 degrees & off at 45 degrees to save on electricity. It worked just fine without the controled plugins to. It works so well that I've put one inside the coop too with the stainless steel pan & into that I put a small enough chick waterer with the quart tall plastic (about size of qt glass canning jar) with the screw on bottom (this waterer was put in coop to keep the water surface smaller as to not add too much humidity to my small coop, but needed the whole electric heated bowl to keep the water from freezing inside coop). Wow, what a "can of worms," sounds so complicated, but it's easy & actually works well.

But alas, this topic I see is about "without using a heated waterer." I do look forward to seeing ideas that I haven't tried yet, as my "xtra rooster pen" doesn't have an electricity option; so it's the old fashioned way of going out with hot tap water as often as possible. Will look into the posts that mention hot water freezing faster than cold/cool, fasinating.

In addition, I have been taking out to my consistant laying hens a warm wet mix of soaked cracked corn, chicken ration, squash/veggies/fruits, dried chilli peppers, alfalfa meal, a little grit & homemade kefir (like yogurt), etc. It's been frozen solid here at our mountain home in Oregon for several days & I discovered last weekend that that hot food was frozen within 30 minutes, what a waist. So lately, I've been keeping the mix dryer by only adding the kefir, so they are able to eat it thru the day. The milk fat in the kefir doesn't seem to freeze so solid. What next!

 

[FireTigeris]

Water freezes?

 

[Chickenaddict]

It's been soo cold here even a heat lamp on the waterer doesn't stop it from freezing. I just change them several times a day adding warm water. I have a heated dog bowl that I could use but the ducks will just swim in in sloshing the water everywhere.