Winter Tips
- Thread starter GrannyG
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Tried salt bottle in dog pen once. Dogs pulled it out and played with it. We always left water dripping in trough for show cattle and pasture cattle. Kept well and lines moving. Of course if no power, no well pump running.
Wouldn't work for us. The cows would pull that out and carry it off. I use a drain plug heater.
I have a spring here that feeds a large water pond for the cows and another small creek. I never have to worry about them. I think I'm going to try the salt water bottle in my chickens water tank. It's a 3 gallon water tank. The cap is plenty large enough for a 16 or 20oz bottle to fit through. Maybe put a couple bottles in the tank.
Thanks
Thanks
What does the water bottle do?
A bottle filled with salt water is supposed to keep the fresh water in the tank from freezing.
I read through dozens of posts in several forums researching this matter. I found only one plausible explanation as to why putting bottles of salt water in a chicken waterer prevents the fresh water in the same tank from freezing. I found no plausible explanation for the same effect in a stock tank.
Important... even then adding a 16 or 20oz bottle of salt water only changes the temperature that the fresh water in the tank freezes by a couple of degrees at most. So, if the outside air temp drops below... say... 25 degrees and stays there a week, the water in the tank will eventually freeze. This means putting small bottles of salt water is only going to help on nights when the temp drops below 32 degrees at night but warms up above 32 degrees during the day. This will delay or even prevent the fresh water in the tank from freezing at night.
The following is by a guy who claims to A) be a chemist B) ran an experiment with two identical chicken waterers, one with salt water bottles inside the tank and one without. Since I don't know this person I recommend taking his theory with a grain of salt... pardon the pun.
The reason a bottle of salt water suspended in a chicken water helps keep it from freezing up is because the salt water in the bottle doesn't freeze at the same temperature as the fresh water in the container. However, it won't help in an open top stock tank. As others have stated, the temperature of the salt water is the same as the fresh water, it just doesn't freeze at 32 F.
As the water in the chicken waterer (a sealed container) begins to freeze it begins to expand. The salt water doesn't and that raises the pressure slightly in the sealed of salt water bottle and the chicken waterer, that slightly lowers the freezing point of the fresh water in the chicken waterer. An open stock tank won't have any increase in pressure in either one.
I know this is more information to say the same thing that has already been said: no adding a salt water bottle to an open stock tank will not help keep it from freezing up.
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I wrapped 80 ft. heat tape around 300 gal stock tanks and then built an insulated box around them. I plugged them in around -10C or lower. It would keep the water from freezing up. If not plugged in, an insulated lid would keep them usable. I just opened it twice a day for the stock to drink. Heat tape only uses 450W while a tank heater uses 1500W and isn't very helpful during the coldest weather. Insulation is. At worst, an unheated tank would only have a thin layer of ice that was easy to break.
I used a submersible stock tank heater in a 25 gallon tub for my ex's horses. Even at temps down to -20° F the water stayed open. But it was definitely electricity dependent and like any device, prone to failure. The heater crapped out during a blizzard once and I had to carry buckets through the snow for a few days. No bueno...
