it’s long but hope it helps!
We have intense winters, and I got sick of hauling buckets in below freezing temps and having our coop turn into a frozen swamp! We made a shallow platform out of treated wood in our Duck coop and covered it with hardware cloth. We bought a 20 gallon tub from Tractor Supply, cut a hole in the bottom and installed a normal tub drain from Lowe’s, connected to PVC pipe under the platform. It connects to a flexible pvc line that empties at the back of our property. There’s a drain lever so I can flip the lever to drain the tub from outside of the coop. 20 gallons is not ideal, but it allows the ducks to swim a little and get clean in the coop while keeping 99% of the water mess contained and keeps their coop dry. (The leftover 1% is one of my Khakis who likes to splash relentlessly
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When temps drop I submerge a small round plastic-safe tank heater from Tractor Supply and the tub has never once frozen over. I wrap the drain lever portion of the PVC in a cord warming cable. There’s no risk of fire as it just keeps the pipe above freezing. I run a grounded extension cord from our house for the heating elements because we don’t have electricity by the coop.
When temps are below zero here I don’t bother with the pools, even with heaters they tend to freeze within a few hours and the ducks make an unholy mess which then turns their run to ice. I tried heated bowls and buckets but the ducks just made a mess or I was refilling them every few hours.
I keep a collapsible hose connected outside to fill it when needed. I drain the hose and tuck it into a large freeze-proof insulated faucet cover. Cinch it over the spigot and good to go!
Added a picture of the tub from when we made it. I stacked some pavers outside of the tub so they can get in easily but they usually just plop right in.
It probably cost $100 to assemble and could be done cheaper. The needed supplies are pretty cheap and if you can drain it in the same area you won’t need extra PVC. We had wood and hardware cloth lying around. The tub was around $20, the tub drain was $7 on clearance from Lowe’s, and the tank heater was a Farm Innovator 250 around $40. PVC is cheap and you can customize the size, length, direction, drain, etc.
You could easily adjust for a larger tub or build a platform big enough for a larger pool and provide a ramp for access.
I covered the side of the coop that had rocks and covered it with straw so their feet down freeze. This is our first winter together. The more advice the BETTER!
