I had an idea! No more frozen livestock water!

[Magus]

So I was looking up "heat tape" for waterlines and came across this variation that you nail to your roof to kill snow buildup. What if you put it in a watering trough? I mean, its waterproof right? It sure would save some misery on days like this!

https://www.amazon.com/Prime-Wire-C...9Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=

 

[INresponse]

It is possible, and might work well. But, they make water tank heaters for that purpose. They work very well.

I have thought of using the heat tap UNDER a small pool in our duck enclosure to help prevent that water from freezing. Dig the pool down a bit, put some foam board insulation down, heat tape on top of that, then the pool, and then bank the dirt around the sides. I think it would work but I haven't tried it yet.

 

[Magus]

I figured someone had beat me to it. Oh well. I know crap about major farming past a couple of hogs and a cow.

 

[Pearl]

All I have to say is....GET A DONKEY!! It's a toy for my boy!;

 

[rice paddy daddy]

Wife bought a water bucket that holds maybe 10 or 15 gallons for the horse that has a heating element in the bottom that plugs into an electrical outlet.

 

[montanabill]

All I need is some sawdust and I can start a ice house with the frozen chunks of ice I am knocking out of two bowls of twice a day when I water my chickens. Some thought is needed.....I have some old heat tape.

 

[Amish Heart]

Never heard of heat tape. But you should see my porch planters. I wagon up 8 solid ice buckets each morning, bring them in the house till the ice lets loose around the inside of the bucket, take them out to the planters and dump them. Looks like weird ice sculptures. I bring in clean buckets with hot water each morning. The amish neighbor can be seen outside a few times a day with the pick axe, but he has cows and horses.

 

[montanabill]

I ounce built two two wood fired stock tank heaters for a friend who lived off grid with 15 horses. One was a 20 gallon barrel and the other was a beer keg. Did some work with the draft and a stove pipe and they actually worked.

 

[Spikedriver]

There are many ways to heat a stock tank, both electric and by hot coals. I've used both floating and sinking electric de-icers and as long as the power doesn't go out, they work quite well. I used heat tapes on the PEX lines that fed the horse's 30 gallon tank to keep them from freezing solid. I wrapped the lines in rubber and waterproof foam over the tapes which I wound around the water lines.

I never knew my grandpa, but pops says he had something that looked kind of like an old style 1 gallon tin oil can with a wood handle on it. Every morning and night he'd fill it with hot coals from the stove and put it in the big stock tank and it would keep the water from freezing solid for at least a few hours. That tank was gravity fed from a flowing well uphill so it always had fresh water coming in, 24/7. It just needed to be kept from freezing solid.

 

[Mountain trapper]

Heating livestock water is easy IF you have electric, and you only need a small amount of water. I need to keep a 300 gallon water tank from freezing for 30+ head of cattle. Right now I have to use a big bar to break the ice and remove the ice from the tank every day, then refill. These tanks get a foot of ice every day and it's impossible not to get wet. Years ago I had a propane stock tank heater. It never did work very good. Maybe it was defective.
I thought about setting up a couple solar panels and a 12 v water pump for circulation. The problem is we get very little sun during November and December. I might have to try another propane heater, but I'm open to ideas.

 

[FarmOR]

Novel concept I saw at one of my customers feedlots:

A three inch galvanized pipe, buried vertically in the middle of the tank. One end of the pipe rises above the water level. The other is underground for about a foot below the frost line. Idea being the underground heat conducts up the pipe to keep the water from freezing solid?

I don't know to what extremes it keeps working. When I was there was about 20 and there was a lot of livestock sharing the pen for hundred gallons tank, so water was being consumed and refilled regularly by the float...

 

[Mountain trapper]

Novel concept I saw at one of my customers feedlots:

A three inch galvanized pipe, buried vertically in the middle of the tank. One end of the pipe rises above the water level. The other is underground for about a foot below the frost line. Idea being the underground heat conducts up the pipe to keep the water from freezing solid?

I don't know to what extremes it keeps working. When I was there was about 20 and there was a lot of livestock sharing the pen for hundred gallons tank, so water was being consumed and refilled regularly by the float...

I've seen that type of tank before, and I could go with something like that. I've seen it done with a large tractor tire with the bottom cemented. I was thinking of maybe a large concrete ring would be better. I've got a water hydrant at the water trough now so I could do that. I just don't know how well it'll work in zero temps and lower.