watering the chickens in the winter without useing a heated waterer

i read somewhere that the 3 gallon black rubber bowls made by little giant will fit inside a 15inch tire. so i tryed it and it works like a big cup holder. they wont knock the water over no more....
 
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I bought a 2 pack at WalMart on the regular light bulb aisle for the same price as the special "reptile" version. A 60 watt black light bulb is a 60 watt black light bulb to me, no matter what it says on the package.
 
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Had an argument with a teacher about this, earned no HW for a week...

lets use 210*F to establish 'hot' water (just under boiling @ 112*F at sea level standard pressure)

lets use (human body* 98.6*F ) temperature to establish 'warm' water

lets use 40*F to establish 'cold' water- the water sitting in the fridge is approx 40*F

lets use ~31-32*F to establish 'frozen' (-although the water in any volume would not be frozen at this temperature the instant this temp is reached).


*any temperature above room temperature, with standard room temperature @ 75*F can be considered 'warm' to some people- it won't really matter

My argument no matter how quickly it happens all hot or warm water steps down through the following, hot-warm-cold-frozen.
Water does not sublime

Her argument was based on putting boiling water in one ice tray and tap water (cold) in another ice tray and checking every 20 min during a 2.5 hour class.

Her physics was right but (I already knew that) but my semantics was right- she agreed to my 'terms' before we started...

We took the temp of the water in the 'first left' cube at the 20min intervals- I declared the hot water 'cold' at interval ??? - its very hard to freeze hot water
wink.png
 
The linked report on the research makes it clear that hot water freezing sooner than cold only under certain circumstances. Evaporation, differing amounts of dissolved gasses, convection, different surroundings. And all that may still mean it comes down to freezing at 31.9°F or 32.1°F. Under the usual circumstances a bowl of water may find itself in
wink.png
, hot water will take longer to freeze than cold. Unusual circumstances are just that, unusual.

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This is generally what I do and since the weather will finally warm today to 25° and should reach 32° by Tuesday for the first time since December 1st, this is my common behavior for having fresh water for the chickens.

My coop is fully insulated. However, when the temperature is in the single digitS' each and every night, there's no way that their water will stay above freezing, especially if the pop door is open thru the day.

There is a light in the coop and while it provides virtually no heat it does allow me to have a little different schedule than Vstoltz. I don't have to be around at lunch time but can still provide fresh water 3 times thru the day.

The birds have their feed, free-choice at any time. When they first come off the roost, they have fresh water. At sun down, they move back into the coop and "chow down" - they are also given fresh water. About 4 hours later, in their lighted coop, the water is replaced again with fresh water. So, when they climb onto the roost they are not thirsty.

Both times that they are most interested in eating, coming off the roost in the morning and going into the coop at the end of the day, they have water to drink. And, before they go to sleep at night, they can drink all they want.

Steve
 
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It is freezing here mostly in Dec thru Feb. I use a heated dog waterer. I put water in almost 2/3 full. I have a large wine bottle full of water that I turn upside down in the waterer. with the lid off this fills the waterer. This is at an angle laying on the back edge of the waterer which it against the wall. This is all up on a milk crate with another milk crate right next to it with a board on it for the chickens to stand on. When the water gets below the open bottle the water comes out slowly. And the chickens can not get into the water with their feet which they seem to love to do. I take a milk jug of water out in the morning to fill it up. I also take more out when I let them out in the afternoon for their play time in the yard. When the wine bottle gets empty I fill it up again and start over. I tried the milk jugs but they are too light and they will knock them out. Glass is the best.
 

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