please rate which one you have and or prefer?
I know of two brands…one is blue, one is green.
I always trust you guys in endorsements—but I’d love to know if ONE or the other you rave about or suggest to avoid!
I am not sure what you are asking.
I have both heated buckets and one of the muck bucket size heated tubs. Love both. Both have held up well and served their purpose.
My heated buckets are all blue, do not know what brand they are but if color equals brand then I guess that is good enough.
I have a large tank with a heater in it. The water disappears quickly! Mostly because the horses drink the warmed water well, but, I think that the heated water also evaperates more quickly. So If I wanted a heated bucket in a stall I probably would go with the heated muck bucket to be sure that the horse always had water available.
I got the blue brand ones for years, they’d only last a season before inexplicably dying, and I never saved the receipt. I got the green one two years ago and it has help up so far, so I vote go green. It was the bucket size, not muck tub.
You might see that the difference is, on the green ones I’ve seen, the heating element is exposed in the bottom of the tub, but not in the blue ones. I have 2 blue ones, love them.
I have never seen anything other than the blue ones, bucket and tub, and have a number of both.
I really like the tubs and use them in place of the large troughs with the heater element.
I use the blue heated buckets…they’ll usually last me at least 4 winters!
I am not sure this needs saying but just going to toss out there that they do not like being dropped from their summer storage area in the rafters of the barn. The sudden stop when they hit the concrete aisle leads to cracking in bad places.
I had the green muck tub size heated bucket and it worked well for me. I didn’t use it for watering the horses, but for soaking haynets for a horse with respiratory issues. I think I used them for about 3 yrs, winter only obviously but never had an issue. They were drained every evening and refilled in the morning.
HPFarmette is correct that the heating element in the green one is exposed, but covered up, at the bottom of the tub but not in the blue one. When I purchased the green ones, they were a little cheaper than the blue.
Hmmm, I didn’t see that it was different between the two? Now I’ll have to check… All I know is I have four blue ones sitting around that don’t work and the green one does.
I like the blue. I can’t remember what I didn’t like about the green but I gave it away.
The BLUE heated buckets in my stalls are 10yo & work like brand-new.
I don’t bother to change them out in warm weather, just unplug.
The metal wire-encased cords are run through the stall feeder opening and along the tops of the stalls to an outlet centered between them.
I also have a 50gal barrel just outside the barn that is kept unfrozen with a sinking de-icer.
The previous pair of geldings I had preferred the outside trough, the present ones prefer the stall buckets.
thanks, guys!
hahaha…yeah, I was too lazy to type out the brand names, as all I’ve ever found was either a brand that was blue or a brand that was green.
This is just the feedback I wanted!
I have a green bucket and no experience with other colors or sizes. My green bucket works just fine and is a few years old. I only use it in the winter for a pony who tends not to drink enough when it’s cold.
My blue heated muck tub is going into its third winter this year. No complaints. I’m also going to be trying the larger Rubbermaid stock tank with a drain plug de icer this season. I broke ice with a sledgehammer and lugged buckets to my second field for months this past winter. Never again.
The green ones I have include the heating element in the bottom of the muck tub, just like a small drain plug heater, with a guard over the top of it.
The downside to this setup are: water getting charged with any stray voltage from the heater, if the bucket gets empty the horse can technically have access to the heating coil if they were to break off the cover.
The blue muck bucket size ones have the heating elements in the walls of the bucket, nothing in the water itself.
Obviously this is helpful so the heating element isn’t ever accessible to the horse, and the water isn’t touching the heating element itself, so unlikely to receive any stray voltage charge.
Personally, I have 4 of the ones where the element is in the bottom of the bucket, and I’m going to sell those and get the blue one, where the heater is in the walls of the bucket. I think my green ones are sometimes emitting a random charge to the horses.
