Bring It ON!!!!

Thanks very much for the reply and information. I'm going to try and find one asap

With the nipple type waterers it must prevent the frost bitness(that can be a word) going on.......might be something to look in to...

That de-icer looks good, but it has to go in water, right? I won't have open water in my coops, dangly wattles can get in that and freeze. I can't understand that the nipple things do and work like, beyond my comprehension.

I have had some severe problems now too with water freezing. Revamping ideas over and over and I think I found one that is working like a hot dam. It will take a bit of getting used to. I am used to filling my chicken waterers only every few days, I use big ones. Gotta get off my lazy butt and just pay more attention daily now to water, no problem. I can do that. the one gallon red base water font filled with warm water from my house, sitting in the warm water in the heated dog bowl. Fits perfectly inside the bowl, so no spills of water anywhere. Birds can only dip their beaks in, wattles won't fit. So, hoping this will work fine. I have also tried something else for my 5 gallon metal font. I popped into Canadian Tire the day before yesterday and purchased a single hot plate, it was on sale $15, regular $17, so not bad. I am trying it out for a couple of days to see how that works. Set on the setting below the lowest setting, almost to off, seems to be keeping the water in the moat in the metal font about 65 degrees. I am impressed, but only time will tell the tale if that will work or not. The metal font is wide enough that the chickens cannot peck at the dial and it faces against the wall. I'll report how that works, but so far, so good. Geeze, bring me summer, all this stuff to do with winter is a pain in my arse! Have an awesome day, CynthiaM.

Antarctica has set a new cold record. -93 C

Yikes! -30 makes me want to hibernate.

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Well Fowler, we all know this had to happen. There is global warming happening after all! (please note the sarcasm) It has been such a money generator for so many organisations. I know now it is called climate change a lot more now.

I remember, in my youth of course, them talking about the next ice age coming. Wonder when we will start to hear about that......

Thing is, I'm not sure the climate ever stops changing. Yes, the winters haven't been like I remember as a kid. So many Halloweens spent with a skidoo suit over my costume but I've only even wore a heavy coat once or twice taking my own kids around. On the other hand, things aren't like what they describe only a few centuries ago.

Don't get me wrong, pollution causes lot more problems than just the weather and any reduction is a good thing.

Hooked up the new deicer yesterday afternoon. Checked them this morning, as I always do, amd the buckets with the new deicers were frozen. Not just the nipples, but the whole bucket. Breakers are fine. Must be faulty units.

Didn't get Icers by mistake, did you?

That would explain everything!!

So, Amazon is awesome. Contacted them via their site this morning about the malfunctioning de-icers, they already got back to me and are issuing a full refund (including refunding shipping) and I don't even have to send them back.

that is cool (whoops, unpopular pun   ), good business practice from amazon.  thanks for letting us know about them.  I found something that looks like this in our barn
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it says 1500 watt on the picture (off google images) and "homehardware".  Our one has 250 watts on it.  looks pretty heavy duty and not as shiny new as this one but I might clean it up and see what it does, maybe in really cold times.  the little heating tape seems to work if it is just below freezing in the barn so I can switch them around maybe.

that is what I use outside in large rubber tub for my ducks in winter, uses less power than the floating one I used to have and works great at any temp so far.