How do you manage iced water?

[Shabby Chic-Hens]

With the winter months right at our doorstep, there's also that slippery stuff that we have all taken slips and falls on. ICE. how do us chicken keepers take care of this cold monstrosity in our hen waterers? I tend to just step one snow boot in, and my weight will break the ice. but sometimes we end up having huge chunks of ice in our frozen buckets. Thankfully for me, my chickens L O V E ice, so I can just go at that block hammer and tongs (literally). But not everyone is lucky like me. I have good chickens that are adapted to these freezing New England winters, but sadly, not everyone does. how do you keep the water in a liquid form, and not have it turn into a solid? Please comment below!

 

[Isadora]

I use five gallon buckets with horizontal nipples and put a bucket heater inside.
No frozen water here!

 

[chickfused]

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B002QXN1EQ/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

[WIchickMama]

2 heated dog bowls all winter long-no frozen water either. I have never had a problem with any of the chickens getting froze wattles either, though I think some on here have.

 

[DickMidnight]

250w tank deicer in a 6 gallon bucket with horizontal nipples.

 

[JacinLarkwell]

Break out the ice and pour new water in

 

[sybonbon]

We all come from different temperature zones so it would be helpful if you said where you live in your comments to help the OP. I live in NJ and I have used heated dog water bowls over the last 6 years. They work without fail unless the power goes out.

 

[BarnyardChaos]

I use a heated water base, with a galvanized waterer - one set in the run, and a second set I can quickly plug in and fill inside the coop when the birds must stay inside.

I would really prefer to set up nipple-waterers with a bucket de-icer, to keep their water supply cleaner, just don't have the stuff yet

BTW, my favorite supplier for all things chicken - and cow, and goat, and horse, .....
https://www.pbsanimalhealth.com/

 

[Shabby Chic-Hens]

2 heated dog bowls all winter long-no frozen water either. I have never had a problem with any of the chickens getting froze wattles either, though I think some on here have.

My coop once looked like a crime scene when that happened. I had a hen (sparkle, who may have been a black austrolorp, and weighed 8lbs) who went for a midnight drink of water. We think she got some water on her comb, and that it froze onto one of the metal bars of our cattle panel hoop-coop. in the morning there was a lot of blood on the white tarp, and a still open sore on her comb. we at first thought they had attacked a vermin (vermin being those rats) and that it had escaped and died somewhere in our backyard. luckily, our engineering skills had held up and no rats had come creeping in.
there's a reason to put a tarp on the inside walls so that doesn't happen again

 

[Shabby Chic-Hens]

Break out the ice and pour new water in

the method that I traditionally used.