Winter water consumption

[Stephanie8806]

I don't know the answer to your question, but I will say that snow does not provide much moisture. If you pack a saucepan full of snow and heat it, you may be very surprised at how little water it yields. Your chickens must be finding a water source somewhere, but my guess is it isn't snow, unless you have unusually wet, heavy snow. I am more familiar with Colorado's snow, which is very dry.

I’m in North Central/Eastern Washington state. The snow out here is quite dry as well. The coast/“west side” gets the heavy snow

 

[Aapomp831]

Chickens drink waaaaay more water in the winter than they do in the summer. I’m not sure of the exact reason... I actually read that here on this site - and have observed this in my own flock. Don’t worry - it’s totally normal.

 

[Stephanie8806]

Chickens drink waaaaay more water in the winter than they do in the summer. I’m not sure of the exact reason... I actually read that here on this site - and have observed this in my own flock. Don’t worry - it’s totally normal.

Well that’s the problem... they’re hardly going through water at all. In summer they were going through 5x more than they are now. 9 chickens have only drank 4 total gallons over the course of 3 weeks...

 

[Aapomp831]

What are you feeding them?

 

[21hens-incharge]

Are the ports freezing up at all?
Maybe they are stuck early in the day?

 

[Stephanie8806]

What are you feeding them?

The 18% corn and soy free layer feed from Scratch and Peck Feeds. Plus some occasional corn free scratch, grubs, and various produce(pumpkin, apples, greens)... they also free range a little almost every day... less lately though since we lost two to hawk attacks a few weeks back

 

[PsychoChickenLady]

I think I must have camels, not chickens!!

This is our second time having chickens (9 four years ago, 10 new ones since July 2020). The first time I paid very little attention to the chickens, they were my son's responsibility.

This time they are MY emotional support pets and I am spoiling them rotten!

Our nine chickens last time managed to survive three years on just snow throughout the winter ~ for each of the three winters that we had them, (which lends me to believe that yours are probably just fine).

I'm Canadian (and unequivocally suck at math) so I'm not exactly sure how much 4 gallons is, (but I think my husband said that our hanging water bucket was 5 gallons) so if your nine birds are drinking almost that much ONE DAY, my girls have to be camels and not chickens at all!!

Between the ten of them, they don't even drunk one full 9x13 baking pan in one day. (Even in the summer they didn't drink the whole five gallons, not even in a week, but they had access to water in their run, not just from the 5 gallon bucket in the coop).

We have had virtually NO snow this year. But below freezing temps meant I needed a solution, but fast!

Putting a 2L bottle of salt water in the five gallon bucket did NOT work, at all, and even if it had, the metal nipples froze anyway.

Just this past weekend, just in time for -21°, I asked my husband to make a cinder block heater, and it works WAY better than expected!!

And even though it was minus-minus cold that first morning, we even had to lesson the wattage of the bulbs from 100 to 60!

I'm so thrilled this worked!! Now I don't have to worry.

(Well, I didn't, until I read your post. Now I think my chickens must be dehydrated too! Like yours, they seem to be normal, happy, active birds ~ well, except for the few -20°C days like we had last week, then they aren't happy)!

I'm attaching a pic of the cinder block heater, and here's a link to my post on IG if you're interested in seeing "in-progress" pics.

I hope your girls make out ok!

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

 

[Stephanie8806]

I think I must have camels, not chickens!!

This is our second time having chickens (9 four years ago, 10 new ones since July 2020). The first time I paid very little attention to the chickens, they were my son's responsibility.

This time they are MY emotional support pets and I am spoiling them rotten!

Our nine chickens last time managed to survive three years on just snow throughout the winter ~ for each of the three winters that we had them, (which lends me to believe that yours are probably just fine).

I'm Canadian (and unequivocally suck at math) so I'm not exactly sure how much 4 gallons is, (but I think my husband said that our hanging water bucket was 5 gallons) so if your nine birds are drinking almost that much ONE DAY, my girls have to be camels and not chickens at all!!

Between the ten of them, they don't even drunk one full 9x13 baking pan in one day. (Even in the summer they didn't drink the whole five gallons, not even in a week, but they had access to water in their run, not just from the 5 gallon bucket in the coop).

We have had virtually NO snow this year. But below freezing temps meant I needed a solution, but fast!

Putting a 2L bottle of salt water in the five gallon bucket did NOT work, at all, and even if it had, the metal nipples froze anyway.

Just this past weekend, just in time for -21°, I asked my husband to make a cinder block heater, and it works WAY better than expected!!

And even though it was minus-minus cold that first morning, we even had to lesson the wattage of the bulbs from 100 to 60!

I'm so thrilled this worked!! Now I don't have to worry.

(Well, I didn't, until I read your post. Now I think my chickens must be dehydrated too! Like yours, they seem to be normal, happy, active birds ~ well, except for the few -20°C days like we had last week, then they aren't happy)!

I'm attaching a pic of the cinder block heater, and here's a link to my post on IG if you're interested in seeing "in-progress" pics.

I hope your girls make out ok!

View this content on Instagram

View this content on Instagram

View attachment 2456859View attachment 2456859

Thanks for your share! Sorry for the confusion in metrics... a gallon is a tiny bit more than two liters, I think. So this summer, our(then) 12 chickens were going through almost two liters a day. This winter, it’s taken now 9 of them three weeks to get through about 8 liters.