water freezing in field

Your horse will be able to break the ice himself...mine do...although a tennis ball or football may help...and your pony may be picked for the England team as an added bonus.
S
grin.gif
 
We always put buckets out on flat solid pieces of wood. As the buckets are not in contact with the ground they take longer to freeze-certainly we do this for our 24/7 ones and change the water every 12 hours and that seems to work even in this very cold snap.
 
The tennis ball trick has never worked for me
confused.gif
So I always break it in the morning. All mine are out 24/7 and they're never thirsty in this weather anyway, there's plenty of water in the grass.
 
Is the water in a trough or a bin? Stick a plank in there anyway because the birds are thirsty at this time of year tend to fall in, and you don't want drowned birds in your troughs.

If it is a trough just keep breaking it, but take the ice out afterwards. If it is in a bucket, move some nice steamy manure from your muck heap and bury your water bin in a mini muck heap.......I boarded at a farm in Devon where the farmer actually did that, and it worked.

Alternatively, and probably not really necessary in the UK (or perhaps even available?) you can get floaty water heaters, or heated water buckets, but you need a power source for those. I couldn't manage without my heated troughs.
 
The people in the next field to mine have a football in their water trough.......it doesn't work ! I break the ice in all troughs in the morning, mine are out 24/7 and so far I haven't got to the field to find thirsty horses waiting hopefully by the trough.
 
Mine usually brake it themselves - one of the ponies usually does it, he has a very handy hoof!

Because its been so cold, for the past 3 nights my damn water trough has been frozen ON (it refills automatically) so in the morning I find it has all overflowed but frozen! So there's huge ice patches round it which is damn dangerous. Not sure what I can do as I couldnt even get the cover off today to turn it off at the mains! It occassionally does it but not 3 nights in a row, it has been rather cold though I guess!
 
[ QUOTE ]
The tennis ball trick has never worked for me
confused.gif
So I always break it in the morning. All mine are out 24/7 and they're never thirsty in this weather anyway, there's plenty of water in the grass.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yup
grin.gif
 
If your water trough fills automatically you need to tie the ballcock up so that it doesn't refil. With mine I just lift the lid up one end of the tank and tie the arm up so it's not resting on the water, and then if won't automatically refil when the water level drops.

I've also used the poo/muck heap round the bottom of a bucket to keep it defrosted, works a treat!

At the RS some of us used to eat our sandwiches whilst standing in the muck heap - toasty warm feet, with a slight pongey undertone. Lovely!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top