Keeping Your CHICKEN WATER FROM FREEZING This WINTER

One of the biggest chores that you will have on the homestead is making sure your animals have water. Water is life and so important to an off grid homestead that is not hooked up to municipal services. We rely on rain catchment and well water to get the resources we need for our livestock and flocks.

The winter months become especially hard as temperatures drop and we need to constantly break up the ice or replace the ice with new water so that our animals can get the drink they need to stay healthy.

Recently, Tim (Hive account@hansjurgen) had heard online that by simply placing a container with salt water within your container of fresh water is a great way to keep your water from freezing. So we gave it a try. Hive account@hansjurgen added a full quarter cup of salt to a small water bottle and filled it with water. The next morning, the temperature was 15 degrees and the fresh water container holding the salt water bottle was laser measured to be at 22 degree Fahrenheit with very little signs of ice. The fresh water container next to it had a very good layer of ice on top.

We posted the following video on facebook and the reviews were mixed with folks reporting back that the methods works well for them and some that reported back that it does not work. Keep reading below to maybe find out why.

vimeo.com/252034972/acb1e71ca7

Naysayers

Now, obviously if the temperature is getting down to ridiculous levels, it may not matter and will not work. But we have proven it will work at temps down to 15 degrees. If it is not working for you, you probably did not add enough salt. The higher the salt content, the lower the level of temperature that the water will freeze keeping the surrounding water from also freezing.

So give it a try and add a lot of salt to your water container. Hive account@hansjurgen used a quarter cup to an 8 ounce bottle. WOW! So yeah, that is a lot of salt but if it keeps your water from freezing this winter and your livestock watered, I would consider that to be worth it!

THE SCIENCE

The amount of salt in the ocean is about 3.5% and that will lower the freezing temperature to about 28 degrees Fahrenheit. But you can add more salt to the water and the freezing temperature will be lower. Most of the information on this is in Celsius and so it may be hard to interpret for Americans. But here is the bottom line. If the method does not work, add more salt. If you reach the point where salt will no longer dissolve, then the temperatures of the water is too cold.

DRUNK CHICKEN

Additional Methods If you really want to go to extremes on keeping your animals water from freezing, you could fill a bunch of plastic water bottles with vodka where the freezing point now becomes 11 degrees Fahrenheit! But make sure your caps are on tight...you don't want to come check on your animals and find that they have been having a party with your vodka!

Have you tried this? If it didn't work, did you give up or did you try adding more salt?