Mare has two buckets in her stall. one is a heated bucket that no longer works, not plugged in, just hanging there being a bucket. The other is identical but works. Diva will not drink from the heated one. It hasn’t frozen yet, but it’s tip top full every time I’m there, even if hte other is close to empty. Is this just another Diva thing?
Nope. Could mean there’s an electrical leak in the plugged in bucket and it’s delivering a very mild shock when she sticks her nose in it.
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[QUOTE=Simkie;8466372]
Nope. Could mean there’s an electrical leak in the plugged in bucket and it’s delivering a very mild shock when she sticks her nose in it.[/QUOTE]
Hmmm… how would one go about determining this? I bought a large heated bucket from TSC and have noticed lately that it’s remaining full… I was just blaming it on the cold snap, but maybe not? Maybe I should leave a plain bucket beside it and see if they drink from that one.
I have found that horses prefer certain colours of buckets as well for drinking. Black is not popular at all, neither is red. Don’t know why but it seems to be true for my horses at home. Given the preference that don’t like these two colours. Just a thought.
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It could taste different-the new plastic could smell or taste funny, maybe she does not like warm water? Try unplugging it and see if she will use it then. Is she still doesn’t use it then it’s not shock, nor temperature.
Could there be soap residue from cleaning?
They definitely have preferences. In my barn the red bucket was the favorite for a long time.
I’ve noticed this too. Especially black. Maybe has to do with:
http://www.coachingwithhorses.com/documents/ChakraCharts.pdf
Do do, do do …Sorry, been watching the “Twilight Zone” marathon…
[QUOTE=Pehsness;8466440]
Hmmm… how would one go about determining this? I bought a large heated bucket from TSC and have noticed lately that it’s remaining full… I was just blaming it on the cold snap, but maybe not? Maybe I should leave a plain bucket beside it and see if they drink from that one.[/QUOTE]
They can be tested with a voltmeter. I made DH test everything Saturday because my IR horse wasn’t drinking out of his new 16 gallon outside tub.
Everything did test at zero reading, but we did have a plug in heater go bad in a stock tank, a few years back. Human hands can’t feel a .5 (point five) reading on the volt meter but a horse sure can.
I cloroxed and re-cloroxed the new outdoor tank and we have concluded it still either smells/tastes funny or he wants his old purple, non-heated tub back.
I have to keep him in the yard, due to some old injuries, he walked around to the other side of the barn and drank from the old un-heated tub over there------that is purple.
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Huh. all our water troughs are black and nobody turns their noses up at them.
Weird.
Sometimes it’s a temperature thing. Some of them actually prefer cold water.
For my horses it is temperature. Some like the warm-ish water from heated buckets, some do not. Currently, my heated buckets are blue, regular buckets are green, outside trough is black. Big Warmblood likes his warm water, sucks his dry each night, drinks some of his non-heated water. Little Warmblood is the reverse. Both drink heartily out of the tank heater equipped outside trough.
I leave the heated bucket in LWs stall unplugged until night check at 9:00pm, which encourages him to drink and also keeps it ice free over night.
I’d try switching the two buckets and see if she really prefers the non-heated one, or if she just likes the one on the right (or left) better. With two regular buckets in my horses stalls, one is always more popular than the other, and it seems to be based on position more than color or temperature.
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my one horse has the ultimate in bucket issues. When they come in a night if I hold a utility bucket for him to stick his head out of his stall and drink out of, he drinks that and drinks his heated bucket over night. If I don’'t hold the bucket for him he won’t drink anything over night. I figure its easier to hold the magic bucket then deal with him colicing as he did before this routine started.
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I think she indicated it was not plugged in–I also find certain horses prefer left vs right bucket… or certain colors.
Nope. Mine won’t either. He would for awhile then he just stopped. Now he will only drink from his y heated purple bucket. I found why he wouldn’t drink from the heated one, the water wasn’t changed for a couple days by the stable hand and he had soaked feed at the time which he would spit all over the heated bucket and in it. So then it got a rotten egg smell and he refused to drink from it. Even when we changed out the buckets. He won’t drink from either and I’ve scrubbed them multiple times with no luck but she drinks enough outside that I’m not worried if he only drinks a bucket a night. He loves his water on the warm side and he loves it even more if our barn cat, who has very bad breathe, drinks from it first. Some nights before I even left I’m a half hour period I’d have to refill it. He will never drink from the heated buckets most likely ever again. So I’m looking into bucket wraps to keep them warm when it gets super cold
This is the problem we had with stray current in an outside heated Nelson waterer that had been installed years ago. They stopped drinking so we set up a tank. The voltmeter picked up the tiny bit of current. Customer service at Nelson was really helpful about searching for the source. They recommended having the electric company test all of their equipment. They arrived several hours after I called with our request. The electrician tested wiring, fuse boxes, anything he could find. It doesn’t make any difference how far away anything is. The wellhead 20’ away wasn’t the source.
We never found it, but installing a 6’ copper ground rod attached to the unit solved the problem.
The first rule the BO drummed into me when I arrived as a volunteer in her therapy program: if you will not drink the water in the bucket or tank, it is not clean enough for the horses.
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please note this is seven year old thread
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Yeah, but this time of year is good to know that if your horse doesn’t drink out of the heated trough or bucket, it’s most likely that’s they prefer cold water. Both of mine will drink from the cold trough/bucket until it is frozen solid. If I give them only heated water, consumption goes down a bit.
Although I’m pretty sure this mostly applies to those of us living in moderate climates. I get that plenty of horses must have a heated water source because everything else freezes solid too fast.
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Mine like yellow, I assume bc it’s lighter?
I laugh.
When I dump the 50gal barrel that serves as my trough, scrub it clean of rust scale (well water) & sludge, scrub with & add a glug of bleach & refill with sparkling clean water…
Horses inevitably wander over to drink from the pooled water I dumped.
Horses! 
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