Freezing water

[annt]

Bit of a silly question maybe but, gardeners use bubble wrap and bagged compacted straw to protect outdoors plants from frost and straw..if you wrapped a barrel thickly with this (making sure horses can’t eat the straw!!) would it help stop water freezing over maybe? I can’t believe how quickly the water is refreezing in the field...smashed it at 8am this morning and by 9am putting horses out it had already frozen over again!! I am really worried that horses are not getting enough water with this being my first seriously cold winter having a horse!! Any tips or advice gratefully received!!

 

[Pearlsasinger]

Ours are in ATM, their buckets have been frozen, despite having apples bobbing around in the water, so I have packed hay around the buckets tonight. We have shavings beds, so no straw. We have also put plastic bottles of hot water in the buckets too, in the hope that the water won't as it has been doing. We are used to having 4 in the stables, raising the temperature but only have 2 now, so it's not as warm now.

 

[Highflinger]

I use straw & bubble wrap & top up with hot water - so far water has just had mushy ice on top in mornings but they can still drink from it . We have had -7 for the last two nights.

 

[Sophire]

Mine hasn’t frozen and others have. I think because I have a bed to the door it’s surrounded by straw, so that seems to work.

 

[Identityincrisis]

Apparently if you fill plastic bottles with 1/3 salt & 1/3 water and pop them in a trough or bucket this prevents freezing, maybe 2 or 3 for a trough though

 

[Annagain]

I got a large tubtrug, put some haylage in it (we don't have any straw) put a bucket of water on top and stuffed a load more haylage round the sides. It did the trick. He drained the bucket and I only have one tubtrug so can't do it with any more but he probably had more water than he would have if it had frozen!

 

[Honey08]

Apparently if you fill plastic bottles with 1/3 salt & 1/3 water and pop them in a trough or bucket this prevents freezing, maybe 2 or 3 for a trough though

I don't think any gimmicks work in really sub zero temperatures, perhaps they will on a light crust of frost, but not this extreme temperatures. I think you have to move stable buckets awY from the door a bit, lag them as best you can and raise stable temperatures by shutting doors. In a field situation you're very unlikely to keep troughs ice free. I think you just have to take buckets as often as you can and encourage them to drink. Try and feed some succulents too - apples/carrots etc but remember these freeze in feed rooms so bring from home.

 

[teddypops]

I don't think any gimmicks work in really sub zero temperatures, perhaps they will on a light crust of frost, but not this extreme temperatures. I think you have to move stable buckets awY from the door a bit, lag them as best you can and raise stable temperatures by shutting doors. In a field situation you're very unlikely to keep troughs ice free. I think you just have to take buckets as often as you can and encourage them to drink. Try and feed some succulents too - apples/carrots etc but remember these freeze in feed rooms so bring from home.

This worked for me last night! I just put a plastic bottle filled with salt water in the field water tub and it wasn’t frozen this morning. The tubs without bottles were solid.

 

[Identityincrisis]

This worked for me last night! I just put a plastic bottle filled with salt water in the field water tub and it wasn’t frozen this morning. The tubs without bottles were solid.

I was about to say, the one I saw trying it was in Canada, a whole lot colder than us.