Marvin Bartel wrote in this week to share
his ingenious solution to the
problem of frozen chicken waterers. His description and
photos were so great, I’ve reproduced the entire email here with just a
few modifications:
Here in Northern Indiana it gets cold. I have a three hens
in a small insulated shed. They use one of your drinkers.
So far this year it has been down to
7 degrees F outside and down to 15 F in the shed.
Being a potter and expecting cold weather, I made a stoneware pot shown
here under the
drinker bucket. It contains a 25 watt lightbulb
controlled by a thermostat. The water bucket has
wire and spring to secure it so it cannot fall off.
The yellow plug thermostat is designed to turn on heat tape to keep
pipes from freezing. It is permanently set to switch on at 38 and
off at 50.
Search for: Easy Heat #EH-38 Auto Thermostat. Amazon has them at
$12.88 + shipping.
This is
the base with the stoneware cover removed.
Inside the closed container it reached 50 degrees too soon and turned
the bulb off before it produced enough heat
to keep the drinker from freezing. By adding an inch of
insulation between the bulb and the thermostat, the bulb
stays on long enough to keep the drinker from freezing
(thus far). The insulation is alumina-silica fiber insulation
used in pottery kilns and space shuttles. Other fireproof
insulation would probably work. The bulb uses a standard
porcelain fixture.
The closed warmer without the water container on top of it. Any
potter can make these. A tinsmith
could also make it from sheet metal.
The
drinker is mounted with a rubber o-ring seal.
Inside the water pail it has a brass nut (sold to fit the little
pipe under a lamp sockets).
We’re always thrilled to
see unique homemade chicken
waterers like this
one. Marvin’s base is very elegant because he’s a potter, but I
suspect less crafty folks could make something equally utilitarian with
even less effort. Or contact Marvin and commission him to make you a unique art base!
| Since making this post, we’ve done a lot of experimentation with the best way to keep chicken waterers from freezing. You can see my favorite heated chicken waterer here, which was good down to the teens last year. We recommend our 3 pack |
thank you, this helped me so much, such a great idea yet very simple to apply
I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Cute chicken houses over on your website. 🙂
How did you teach your chickens to drink from the nipple?…
It’s really pretty simple — just take the old waterer out the night before then put in the new watererer the next morning and tap the nipple a few times. Our waterers come with complete instructions to help even the most recalcitrant chickens learn the new trick.
Great
That is amazing and so simple
Thanks n God bless
Lora — You might be interested in checking out our other heated chicken waterer options. The new versions are even easier to build!
Anna – in your comment 2 on Dr. Bartel’s post you complement his chicken houses on his web page. That caught my interest, so I went there for a look, but didn’t find any. I also looked at what he cites as his earlier page, which might have been up when you made that comment (he keeps a link to it). No luck there either. He has some georgeous fireplace mantels, though, for those with such an interest. Can you direct me toward his coops, please?
Chuck — I was complementing the coops of the first commenter, which you can see by clicking on his link, or at http://www.poshchicks.co.uk/.