We enjoyed an abnormally warm
December, so our heated
chicken waterer
didn’t get much of a test.  Then came January’s arctic blast.



The first night of the
cold spell, temperatures plummeted to 16 degrees Fahrenheit.  When
I went out to check on the flock, one of the nipples had frozen up, but
the other was still flowing.  The thawed nipple was on the side of
the bucket facing the roosting area, so it’s possible that the
chickens’ body heat was enough to warm that area very slightly. 
Alternatively, the heat tape might have simply been closer to the
bottom of the bucket on that side.



That day, it never got
anywhere near freezing, with temperatures hovering in the high teens to
low twenties.  The second night, we got down to about 10 degrees
Fahrenheit, which was far too low for the heat tape waterer.  Not
only were both nipples frozen, there was a skim of ice two inches thick
on top of the bucket.



We’ve got plenty more
options to making the heated waterer stay warmer — we were just
waiting to see how this simplest option fared in cold weather.  A
longer section of heat tape might help since it could wrap all the way
around the bucket (as in Lu
Ann’s protype), and
the bucket could definitely use an insulative sleeve.  We could
even add a heat
lamp facing the nipples, preferably one plugged into
a thermocube so it only came on when
temperatures approached freezing.



Or we might just leave
the waterer the way it is — there aren’t many nights in our neck of
the woods that drop below 16!

Susie sent me some great photos
of her heat tape bucket waterer, complete with an insulation layer and
an easy-fill top.  The construction technique is based on this
heat tape chicken waterer, but with Susie’s own twist.



She started out with two
buckets of different sizes.  The outer bucket was a freebie from
the bakery section of her grocery store, where it once held frosting,
and the inner bucket originally held bird food.



After installing the
nipples (as described in our do it yourself
kits), Susie wrapped the inner bucket with with a six foot length
of heat tape.



Next, she cut enough of
the bottom off the outer bucket to make a loose fit when it slid over
the inner bucket and heat tape.  The photo below on the left shows
the dry-fitting stage — she later took the buckets back apart before
moving on to the next step.

Now for the innovative
part.  Susie wrapped a layer of insulation around the inner bucket
and heat tape, attaching the insulation with some duct tape.  She
wrote that the insulation was “foil-bubble-bubble-foil
(about 1/4″ thick)”.



Next, Susie put the
outer bucket back in place (sanding off the rough edges so the chickens
wouldn’t peck at the loose plastic.)



Finally, she added a
hose to the lid to make it even easier to fill.  The hose is about
3/4 inches thick and is held in place using a small hose clamp on each
side of the lid.  Susie wrote:

So far, temperatures have only dropped into the low 20s, but I’m looking forward to hearing how Susie’s waterer handles even cold conditions.