Water in the winter

[Ourcozycoop]

All mine are run off extension cords carefully away from horse mouths, so far no problem but this is an old old barn so the Jerk never put in no fault or enough outlets,which I am doing now adding some where I need them most.

We had to replace as well.Our electrical is still a work in progress. The man before us didn’t have a clue what he was doing. So we have been ‘cleaning’ it up and minimizing. We put in 4 GFCI’s and I would still like to replace the rest of the outlets....little by little right lol

I was hoping I could plug a heater into an extension cord for those days I close off the barn leaving them only the run in (which is connected to the barn but too far from outlet) This was another mention in the stock tank heater manual. No extension cords...but I purchased a 12 gauge anyways.

 

[gasjr4wd]

With this same thought with water in winter in mind, I have a well next to a barn with power. I haven't installed the pump or tank or anything else yet. I thought I would extend the barn around the well and insululate it and heat it. Does this sound like a good idea? I have plate heater I got on amazon for chickens (Cozy Products CL Safe Chicken Coop Heater) and I hope that will take enough chill to keep things from freezing. Then a concrete floor in well room and frost free hose bibs in barn. Any thoughts? I'm in Delaware, getting tired of lugging around milk jugs for chickens.

 

[gregr]

We have two tanks and a pump that transfers between the two with a filter. That way the water stays clean year round and in the winter it helps prevent freezing.

 

[Ourcozycoop]

We have two tanks and a pump that transfers between the two with a filter. That way the water stays clean year round and in the winter it helps prevent freezing.

I was actually thinking of doing this. In the summer I used of of our stock tanks to hold gold fish while I cleaned out their pond. It was a big job so I hook up a filter system and pump with a big rubber maid to keep them clean while they were in there.

For cleaning sake alone, I’d be stupid not to do this in the spring. So many great ideas on here!

 

[JanBKS]

What kind of pump, I clean there buckets and the one bigger one out with a strainer like for kitchen, get them from dollar general lots cheaper than Walmart plus they wear out rather quickly, guess it would be rather hard with a 16 gal tub to set something up like that, the girls are constantly getting there water dirty. I was thinking of getting a battery operated fish tank vacuum all the dirt would hopefully go in filter bag.

 

[EvaMKV]

I remember that in the winter we had huge problems with our water system. We didn't want to let the horses go outside in -14 to the lake, so we tried to build a kind of automatic water system for our horses. I had a lot of big headaches while thinking of making it. Luckily, one of my friends worked at WILCO PLUMBING. He helped me very much, also he invited a few of his workmates to help us with the pipes and drain system. It was an excellent experience for me. Anyway, we reached our goal and moved on.

 

[Gendo]

I had an almost similar situation but it had ended not as well as yours

 

[frankarmes]

Why don't you install a boiler or hot water dispensary? It's just that I have a country house and a small stable for horses. So I installed a hot water dispenser, and no matter the weather or the time of year, there is always hot water in the stable. Speaking of which, we found it by accident. My wife wanted to buy on https://diligentchef.com/best-alkaline-water-pitcher/ an alkaline for water and accidentally saw the information about the dispensary. So we decided to give it a try, as winter was about to start in three months, and we still hadn't solved the water problem in the stable.

 

[Maryann at MiniV]

We have a "frost free" hydrant inside the barn. The trick is to make sure the piping to it and IT are buried below the frost line. The previous owners didn't understand that, so we had to re-do a lot. We have trough heaters connected to heavy duty extension cords off the barn. And filling the troughs means being sure to drain the hose(es) afterwards.....otherwise we have to pull them in the house to thaw and drain. Ugh.