winter and frozen water

[shoetou]

I have a coop that is 8x8x10 at the tallest . no heat not insolated . my question is I know water is going to freeze here in Ohio if it gets that cold . I will give the 5 guinea's water in the morning or late after noon when I get home from work . will once a day be ok that they get a drink before it freezes the water .

 

[nchls school]

I have a coop that is 8x8x10 at the tallest . no heat not insolated . my question is I know water is going to freeze here in Ohio if it gets that cold . I will give the 5 guinea's  water in the morning or late after noon when I get home from work . will once a day be ok that they get a drink before it freezes the water .  

A better way is to get a stock tank heater to keep the water thawed. There is also pet dishes that keep water from freezing. My neighbor used one on her patio to give all the stray cats a place to get a drink during the winter.

 

[Toddrick]

You can get a heated drinker for chickens, or a bird bath heater to put in your existing waterer. I use a stock tank heater for my rain barrel, which I in turn use to fill my heated drinker.

You can make your own heated drinker with an incandescent bulb in a cookie tin under the drinker.

 

[R2elk]

I have a coop that is 8x8x10 at the tallest . no heat not insolated . my question is I know water is going to freeze here in Ohio if it gets that cold . I will give the 5 guinea's water in the morning or late after noon when I get home from work . will once a day be ok that they get a drink before it freezes the water .

Another method is to dig a hole and line it with manure, set a bucket in the hole and fill the area around the bucket with manure. When filling the bucket with water, overflow the water to keep the manure composting and releasing heat. This keeps the water from freezing for me until the temperatures get below 0°F. Even during the sub zero temps the ice layer only forms on the water level that is above the ground level. At -30°F I get up to a 3/4" thick layer of ice on the top of the bucket which I just break out and remove. When a thin skiff of ice forms, the poultry peck through it easily.

Of course you also have the option of using heated water set ups or heated buckets or pet dishes.

Good luck.

 

[shoetou]

my problem is I cant get any power out to the coop so back to my question can they get enough water for the day if I give them water one time a day

 

[Toddrick]

my problem is I cant get any power out to the coop so back to my question can they get enough water for the day if I give them water one time a day

Obviously it depends on the temperature. When it was 15F last winter I think the water inside my coop would be frozen solid in a couple hours.

You can recharge an old car battery and use an inverter (sold at Walmart, for example) to plug in your heated drinker. I haven't done this, but I suspect the battery would last most of the winter, and it's easy to charge (no point in constant solar panel charging).

If your coop is far enough from the house that you can't run an extension chord, then I don't think you'll find it very fun to carry water to it in the freezing cold every single day. It is far better to keep it from freezing as much as you can, and carry out water as a backup plan.

 

[nchls school]

my problem is I cant get any power out to the coop so back to my question can they get enough water for the day if I give them water one time a day

Twice a day. Once a day is not enough for the guineas to stay healthy. In the past I had the same problem. Twice a day kept the poultry going; still not an ideal situation. Consider trying R2elk's idea from above. I now have a heated coop, but I'm still going to try the method this winter just to know for the future.

The car battery idea has merit too; certainly worth checking into.

 

[MeepBeep]

You can recharge an old car battery and use an inverter (sold at Walmart, for example) to plug in your heated drinker. I haven't done this, but I suspect the battery would last most of the winter, and it's easy to charge (no point in constant solar panel charging).

The battery would generally not even last a day, let alone an entire winter...

A small bird bath deicer is 50W, a decent heater is about 150W...

A typical car battery has a capacity of 45Amp/Hours...

If you were to run a 50W heater with a 45AH battery combined with an inverter (assuming real world loses, and battery drain curves) you would only get about 6 hours before the battery was dead...

If you were to run a 150W heater with a 45AH battery combined with an inverter (assuming real world loses, and battery drain curves) you would only get about 2 hours before the battery was dead...

That assumes the heater is running full time, if the heater is cycling on/off this would be the approximate on cycle...

You can get longer run times with a decent deep cell battery, but most of them are around 120-150AH so you are still under a single day run time...

And you would need a very sizable ($$$) solar array to keep the battery charged in the short winter days a that level of drain...

 

[Toddrick]

The battery would generally not even last a day, let alone an entire winter...

A small bird bath deicer is 50W, a decent heater is about 150W...

A typical car battery has a capacity of 45Amp/Hours...

If you were to run a 50W heater with a 45AH battery combined with an inverter (assuming real world loses, and battery drain curves) you would only get about 6 hours before the battery was dead...

If you were to run a 150W heater with a 45AH battery combined with an inverter (assuming real world loses, and battery drain curves) you would only get about 2 hours before the battery was dead...

That assumes the heater is running full time, if the heater is cycling on/off this would be the approximate on cycle...

You can get longer run times with a decent deep cell battery, but most of them are around 120-150AH so you are still under a single day run time...

And you would need a very sizable ($$$) solar array to keep the battery charged in the short winter days a that level of drain...

Darn. I forgot how much juice heaters use, even with a thermostat.

 

[kjstanton]

I have thought about using these to wrap around a waterer. Then wrap with some sort of insulator product and see if you can make it last 4 hrs.

There might be some solar options