bubble wrap buckets

[charlie13]

had a little bright light pop over my head
what do you guys think of putting bubble wrap round water buckets to sloww the frezzing process down ?

dont know if it would work but well what is't worth a try ?

 

[Trueredlegend]

I think this would work. I suppose you'd have to make sure that you kept the bubble wrap as dry as possible as any spillage would freeze and not help.
What I did last winter was have car tyres in the corner of the stable - 2 or 3 stacked up on top of each other. Make sure that the top one fits the water bucket snuggly and it won't fall through. This insulated the water - I made sure that the tyres were at the back corner of the stable each side as it's a bit warmer there. It worked in Surrey anyway. Only problem is as the water is so near the floor any bedding gets in the bucket by the morning if you have a roller!
I am investing in wall mounted bucket holders this winter and am trying to think of how to insulate them. I have thought about cutting up freezer bags from the supermarket and well as bubble wrap! I think I'll make them so that the bucket will 'drop in'!!

 

[JenHunt]

I put bubble wrap around my wormery in the winter to prevent it from freezing, so think it would certainly help with water buckets!

my wormery is like these ones, so square which makes wrapping in bubble wrap quite easy. Perhaps for buckets you could make a box out of plywood and stuff it with bubble wrap then put bucket inside!

 

[maresmaid]

Last winter i put my water buckets in 2 tub trugs which had a lining of used bedding (bliss) layered between them - first tub trug lined with bedding place second slightly smaller tubtrug inside it and pack the bedding down the sides between the two then place water bucket inside second bucket. There is some heat generated by the used bedding between the two tubtrugs which seemed to help stop the water freezing over for longer.

 

[Foxhunter49]

I wouldn't like to do it as the horse will probably pull it off and a danger in eating it.

I never use buckets but have a corner manger filled with water - it can freeze but is easy enough to knock out.
I like maresmaid's idea far safer.

 

[trottingon]

I'm sure I've read somewhere that water is less likely to freeze if the bucket is sat on rubber stable matting, does anyone have any experience/comments regarding this?
I banked up shavings around my bucket last year and the water didn't seem to freeze as often as others' on the yard.

 

[Box_Of_Frogs]

I just pull the bedding a bit further towards the stable door so that the water bucket stands inside it. Obviously not so high that the bedding drops into the bucket but high enough to come to about 3" from the top. As long as the temperature only drops to just below freezing that's usually enough as my horses are all in inside barn stabling. But if the temperature drops to -18C as it did 2 winters ago then nothing will stop water freezing unless you find a way to artificially raise it's temperature. Look up owners' ideas from winter 2010, loads of desperate and interesting ideas there including I think putting electric warmers under or in the water. All a bit dodgy though...electricity, water and unattended horses just don't go together! There was also an interesting discussion on whether putting hot water into the water bucket actually made it freeze faster but it makes your brain ache just thinking about it lol.

 

[Suelin]

I'm sure I've read somewhere that water is less likely to freeze if the bucket is sat on rubber stable matting, does anyone have any experience/comments regarding this?
I banked up shavings around my bucket last year and the water didn't seem to freeze as often as others' on the yard.

I don't find that this helps appreciably sadly. The method suggested by Maresmaid is very helpful though, although if it gets cold enough then nothing helps. I find that water is the biggest winter problem so if someone can solve that then we will all be laughing.

 

[SpottedCat]

In the USA you can buy heated buckets, and certainly when I was there all the outside troughs had heating elements in them - no more dangerous than a kettle (tho obviously the water didn't get that hot!).

Over there the buckets froze solid overnight (one of my jobs was to spend 2 hours each morning cracking ice out with a mallet), but the horse were actually fine - they melted a hole with their noses!

In 2010 I wrapped buckets in old rugs and put some of those skiing handwarmers in the bottom and polystyrene in the top (which the horse had to push down to drink) and that worked pretty well.