Heating troughs in wintertime--out of the box solutions??

[Dutchmare433]

I need to get heated water to 2 paddocks this winter. There isn’t easy access to electrical outside. I found a trough heater that is battery powered–it says each battery lasts 24 hrs, so could buy 2 heaters with 2 batteries per heater. This does rely on staff remembering to swap out and charge the batteries each day. I am there generally 6 days a week, so could generally do this, but that doesn’t account for vacations etc–although that’s probably not actually an issue at least this particular winter.

Other options? Perhaps a solar powered heater? I vaguely remember having something floating in the trough helping to stop ice from forming…a ball maybe? Does this work when it’s very cold, or only when it’s just a bit below freezing?

Any other suggestions to keep the water warm? Spray insulation? How does one go about that, it would be trough, spray insulation, and…what goes outside of that?

Anything else you can think of?

[LilRanger]

You could use an old tire to go outside the insulation. They are tough and cheap. NOt sure how big your trough is, but make sure it just sits inside so you can dump it. You can always cut tires with an angle grinder, so you can fit them around the trough you insulate. The black of tires also helps to gather heat.

[Dutchmare433]

@LilRanger

You could use an old tire to go outside the insulation. They are tough and cheap. NOt sure how big your trough is, but make sure it just sits inside so you can dump it. You can always cut tires with an angle grinder, so you can fit them around the trough you insulate. The black of tires also helps to gather heat.

Excellent idea, and I have easy access to a bunch of old tires. Genius.

[LilRanger]

Yay! I"m happy to help!

[clanter]

would say we still have boxes we have not unpacked from moving from the frozen great far north 39 years ago, so an out of Box solution for us was move. We went through the horrible winters of the late 1970s where we had water lines freeze, the city had water lines freeze which then required us to chop ice on lakes to get water for the horses

And there was the six mile hike to the vet clinic to take care of the dogs/cats boarded … my wife was vet tech then, no one else could get to the clinic after a four foot snow fall, so it hike in and then hike back home on the abandoned roads

[clanter]

regarding those Battery powered heaters… Read the instructions for recharging those batteries… and if a battery freezes Do Not Attempt to recharge it as it is possible it will explode

As for on site charge look into a vertical axis wind turbine, these have been used on sailing boats for well over one hundred years

[TXPiaffe]

We have a shared water tank between 3 paddocks. We also have a propane tank and propane tank heater that works wonderfully to keep the water to a nice temperature. There is a farm supply catalog that carries them, but the one we use has to be about 40 years old. You can probably get a propane tank fairly reasonable, no electricity, no batteries, no shorting out and we only fill the propane once a year. The horses are in North Central KS where it does get below freezing and the tank sits out in the open with no wind block.

[Dutchmare433]

@TXPiaffe

We have a shared water tank between 3 paddocks. We also have a propane tank and propane tank heater that works wonderfully to keep the water to a nice temperature. There is a farm supply catalog that carries them, but the one we use has to be about 40 years old. You can probably get a propane tank fairly reasonable, no electricity, no batteries, no shorting out and we only fill the propane once a year. The horses are in North Central KS where it does get below freezing and the tank sits out in the open with no wind block.

Where does the propane tank sit in relation to the horses?

[SusanO]

Where is zone 8 and how cold does it get? I made some insulated tubs for milder weather for my horses. I bought the heavy duty mucktubs, wrapped them in blue insulation that comes in a roll of about 3 or 4 inches wide strips. Wrapped that around the tubs and wrapped that in black Gorilla tape. Then I have some blue styrofoam tops that I put over the tubs overnight. ( The horses are indoors overnight) . When I fill the tubs in the afternoon with water which is usually not that cold it will stay ice-less overnight. Even the top doesn’t have ice when I pull the Styrofoam cover off. This has worked in the 20’s overnight. But we rarely have it stay below freezing during the day. I don’t know if this will work for you at all but it sure beats dealing with a frozen hose in the early morning hours.

[Dutchmare433]

@SusanO

Where is zone 8 and how cold does it get? I made some insulated tubs for milder weather for my horses. I bought the heavy duty mucktubs, wrapped them in blue insulation that comes in a roll of about 3 or 4 inches wide strips. Wrapped that around the tubs and wrapped that in black Gorilla tape. Then I have some blue styrofoam tops that I put over the tubs overnight. ( The horses are indoors overnight) . When I fill the tubs in the afternoon with water which is usually not that cold it will stay ice-less overnight. Even the top doesn’t have ice when I pull the Styrofoam cover off. This has worked in the 20’s overnight. But we rarely have it stay below freezing during the day. I don’t know if this will work for you at all but it sure beats dealing with a frozen hose in the early morning hours.

I’m in New England so unless we get a really mild winter like last year, it will be pretty normally in the 20s or below at night and will often stay below freezing during the day. I’m thinking some kind of insulated tub plus one of the battery or solar powered heaters might be best.

[eightpondfarm]

we have a well for the house and another well for the barn. I run a 50’ hose from the barn to a big stone by the creek and leave the water running 24/7/365. We water birds (our own free range poultry and wild birds too), a herd of horses, a flock of sheep, the cattle and a lone bull and his pet steer…all along the creek line somewhere. Even in the most zero-y weather, with running water access is only a hoof step away. All the horses and cattle and sheep know how to find water.

[TXPiaffe]

@Dutchmare433

Where does the propane tank sit in relation to the horses?

Dutchmare, Please ignore the crude drawing, but it is close to the attached drawing. It is a round water tank, the propane tank is next to the water tank with a short line going from the tank to the heater. The propane guy comes and fills the tank when we call him. He also lights the heater in the fall when we call him. He is used to the horses and livestock, but I suppose if he wasn’t Mom would handle having Louie shut away from him. We have the paddocks set up so that we can divide them off into smaller pens if we need to.
But, tank and heater are both protected from the horses as my previous TB loved to play with the tank heater So it now has a cage around it for protection.All of the livestock before left it alone.

Tank drawing.pdf (13.6 KB)

[TXPiaffe]

I’m attaching a propane heater that we looked at to replace our old one. This is what we’ll have to order when ours finally gives out as we have no access to electricity down at the tank and propane has served us well for over 40 years. You can find them here https://stockyardsupply.com/watering-systems/stock-tank-de-icers-heaters/

[Dutchmare433]

@TXPiaffe

Dutchmare, Please ignore the crude drawing, but it is close to the attached drawing. It is a round water tank, the propane tank is next to the water tank with a short line going from the tank to the heater. The propane guy comes and fills the tank when we call him. He also lights the heater in the fall when we call him. He is used to the horses and livestock, but I suppose if he wasn’t Mom would handle having Louie shut away from him. We have the paddocks set up so that we can divide them off into smaller pens if we need to.
But, tank and heater are both protected from the horses as my previous TB loved to play with the tank heater So it now has a cage around it for protection.All of the livestock before left it alone.

Thank you, the drawing is actually helpful, I’m not sure it would work for this situation, I’m not sure the owner of the property would be wild about the propane tank. But I’ll look into seeing if we could attach 2 heaters to one tank. The 2 paddocks that need heated water can’t share a fence line because there’s a stallion in one. But I wonder if we could set up some other energy source in the alley between the paddocks and run power to both troughs.

[Libby2563]

I have no firsthand experience with these but maybe look into solar tanks?

http://www.ranchtanks.com/index.html
DIY version: https://www.motherearthnews.com/diy/tools/solar-stock-tank-zmaz10onzraw

[Komier]

I made insulated muck bucket sized waterers. You need a muck bucket, expanding foam insulation spray cans, a large garbage bag for the muck bucket to fit in and a 50 gallon blue plastic barrel. Turn muck upside down and cover with the garbage bag. Cut the blue barrel to fit over the muck bucket so the barrel is open both ends. Add a bit of extra height for ground insulation. Start spraying the foam insulation between the garbage bag covered muck and the blue barrel. The insulation will stick to the blue barrel and after it cures you can take the muck and barrel apart for easy cleaning. The top couple of inches of the muck and the handles will be exposed to the weather. Making it this way kept the insulation away from the horses.

I cut notches in the blue barrel for the muck bucket handles to sit in and cut the rope handles off, too easy for the horses to “ entertain themselves” with playing with those! I used this for the electric heated muck sized waterers and cut a slot at the bottom of the blue barrel for the cord to exit.

[Lmurf]

TXPiaffe, What size propane tank are you using? Also, what size water tank do you have? The spec for the heater say it’s for 100 gallon tanks, not smaller.

[OnAMission]

We once used an old propane grill to make a propane heater to heat a big metal tank. We would fire it up when doing chores to get the water warm and then shut it down before it got hot, obviously.

It really worked pretty well; had a small propane tank, also from the grill, that DH had in the back of the feed truck and hooked up when it was time to run the grill/heater.

Farmerized, yes. Worked? Also yes. Obviously metal tank and some ingenuity required.

[TXPiaffe]

Lmurf,

I’ll get pictures of the tank, heater and propane tank next time I run down to Mom’s. I am hoping this weekend. The metal water tank is round and fairly decent sized. The 2 horses drink about 1/2 every week. Mom keeps it full and doesn’t let it get below 1/2.
The propane tank is not BBQ grill size but small household sized. We keep the temp to just about where the water won’t freeze over. We don’t want warm water, but we don’t want it cold either.

[anon81364900]

@clanter

As for on site charge look into a vertical axis wind turbine, these have been used on sailing boats for well over one hundred years

Could be used as a trickle charger, but solar panels would be less expensive way to do that. Marine winds are really different than onshore winds. ETA: and I think that’s what Clanter’s proposing–a trickle charge. Rest of my treatise below is more about people interested in replacing grid power with small wind turbines

More info below, but fair warning that the rest of my post is going to get wonky.

I’m in the renewable energy biz and while I’m a big proponent of windpower, homeowners are generally getting fleeced by those small residential sized turbines. Notoriously prone to malfunctions and no one to service them. But the real problem is that their “rated wind speed” is so high that unless you have an ideal site they produce much less power than homeowner is paying for. The cost per kilowatt-hour ends up being high enough that the better investment would be to pay a contractor to run power out where you need it.

Why is rated wind speed important? It’s the wind speed at which the turbine will actually put out its nameplate output. So if you buy a 1500W turbine, for example, it’s not going to produce 1500W until you get sustained winds at that rated speed. The specifications will express rated speed in meters/second (industry standard) and most of the small turbines need wind @ around 13-14m/s to hit their nameplate power. That translates to 30-32 mph. Few places see that kind of wind on a sustained basis (or put it this way, few people would want to build a home there). To have a prayer of achieving the rated speed, you need to be 20 ft higher than the tallest obstacle within 500ft of your turbine. So if you have mature 40ft trees, that’s a 60ft tower, which gets pricey and zoning rules may restrict that anyway. Anything below that is swirly, “disordered” wind that has very little useful energy. Don’t get me wrong, your turbine will spin, but it’s achieving a fraction of its rated power.

If you’re going to do residential renewable energy, solar is usually a better buy, even in northern climates.

Thus concludes my wonk.