Winter water

[Scatty Hatti]

Hi from the UK; the winter temps where I am (southern England) are usually mild (I am very lucky) so my girls dont suffer. But the past few days they have been below freezing even during the day and I am not there during this time to de-ice and top up their water. Can only do in the morning and by lunch time it has frozen. Biggest problem is I have no power, so cannot use a heated water bowl. Amazon do battery ones but not in the UK! Is there anything I can do? I have made up a water bowl (plastic) with a double thermo wrap sleep round the outside inside a slightly bigger cardboard box which I have also insulated with the same stuff inside and out. Will place off the ground inside a little shelter tomorrow to see how that goes but if it doesnt work can anyone suggest a magic solution? My neighbours are great but very elderly and dont really want to go outside when its below freezing (understandable) , so I am a bit stuck. Thanks - any advice really appreciated.

 

[Echelontheory101]

Hi from the UK; the winter temps where I am (southern England) are usually mild (I am very lucky) so my girls dont suffer. But the past few days they have been below freezing even during the day and I am not there during this time to de-ice and top up their water. Can only do in the morning and by lunch time it has frozen. Biggest problem is I have no power, so cannot use a heated water bowl. Amazon do battery ones but not in the UK! Is there anything I can do? I have made up a water bowl (plastic) with a double thermo wrap sleep round the outside inside a slightly bigger cardboard box which I have also insulated with the same stuff inside and out. Will place off the ground inside a little shelter tomorrow to see how that goes but if it doesnt work can anyone suggest a magic solution? My neighbours are great but very elderly and dont really want to go outside when its below freezing (understandable) , so I am a bit stuck. Thanks - any advice really appreciated.

It's a bit expensive but I have a jackery 300 and a jackery 1000 battery bank that I use both in my house during outages and out at the coop for random stuff and the jackery 300 power bank runs my rent a coop water heater belt for 14 hours. I have the jackery on a solar panel so it just recharges everyday but you could also bring it inside to recharge it and then bring it out at night to plug it in. You just have to take a look at the wattage of your water heater those big base water heaters use a lot more wattage so will run on those batteries for less time but if you only need eight or so hours you could do one of the heated water bases as well. The heater belt is only 40 watts and works very well for nipple water buckets.

 

[Ridgerunner]

How much sunshine are you getting? In winter I use black rubber bowls I can get at a feed store to water them. When they freeze you can break the ice out of them by beating them against the ground without breaking the bowl.

Being black, they absorb heat from the sun and will keep water thawed for quite a while. The sun doesn't always shine but it makes a big difference with mine. Of course they will be frozen solid in the morning so you have to clean the ice out.

When it does warm up you'll need to move them to the shade so the water doesn't get too hot.

 

[Scatty Hatti]

Thanks both, helpful. Echelontheory my husband would be totally up for your battery solution being a total battery/e bike freak, but we only have two chickens! But if we ever get a load more, yep, that sounds like a plan. Ridgerunner, that is good info. It has been sunny this past week here - really nice in fact - but minus 2 in the day and in a few days I will be away for two weeks although someone nearby said they will come and check the bowl every morning. I will carry on with the insulated bowl set up I have done and see how that goes. I also found that moving the uninsulated bowl into a shelter with a roof overnight actually kept the water unfrozen today and the girls could get to it when they came out at 7am this morning. I am lucky. I know the US temps can go down way more than here and I am in total awe of your resourcefulness. Thanks again.