Water troughs - how often do you break the ice?

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Hutchlou

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Like everyone else, I am totally fed up with this weather.
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My horse is out at the moment as the ramp & track up to her field are very dangerous due to snow & ice and it's just not worth trying to bring her in. She has a thick combo rug & seems more than happy!

We are taking extra hay up every morning & breaking the ice on the water trough. The ice has been about 3 inches thick each time!
How many "drinking" hours would horses get in this weather before the water refreezes? I'm worried they are not getting enough to drink...
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I break the ice every morning on ours, but then they are only our during the day. If they were living out, I would break morning and evenings.
 
I have been doing my water trough just once a day. The horses seem to keep a liitle area unfrozen anyway for quite a while, and I break the rest.

If your horses are drinking lots when you do break the ice, maybe you need to do it more often. If not dont worry about it!
 
Break the ice as often as possible for you. You can 'make' a device that will stop an area freezing over. Get a piece of plastic or say the cover of a plastic folder or plastic ring binder. Cut it off and cut a big circle shape, in the circle (you will have to bend it in half to do this bit) make smaller holes, a bit like a snowflake design. This when placed on the water will stop that area from freezing and horsey can push down on it and it will pop back up. It is a bit Blue peter and may only stop it freezing for a while but worth a go. I saw this on a prog for stopping ponds freezing so it must work a bit
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A pick axe, or small hand axe is the best thing to break ice with, use a sieve to get the chunks out and please, ice shards are sharp, protect your eyes (says she who has had a ice chip in her eye - it hurts - a lot)
 
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Break the ice as often as possible for you. You can 'make' a device that will stop an area freezing over. Get a piece of plastic or say the cover of a plastic folder or plastic ring binder. Cut it off and cut a big circle shape, in the circle (you will have to bend it in half to do this bit) make smaller holes, a bit like a snowflake design. This when placed on the water will stop that area from freezing and horsey can push down on it and it will pop back up. It is a bit Blue peter and may only stop it freezing for a while but worth a go. I saw this on a prog for stopping ponds freezing so it must work a bit
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thanks for that bit of advice am going to try it as the balls dont seem to have worked
 
Thanks.
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The first day I broke it, my horse came over and drank for about a minute.
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Every time since she has not really been that interested (even when I tempted her with an extra carrot on the surface!!!)
 
I am breaking mine morning and evening, when I feed and hay them.
Often they have kept an area open anyway.
You can assess whether your horse is becoming dehydrated by pinching skin on the neck and watching how quickly it springs back (warning - old horses have saggier skin so will be slower anyway) or looking at the dung.
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We break ours once a day and most of the time there is a hole that the ponies have kept open. At the moment our troughs aren't filling so they're completely empty. We're taking water down each day in containers but they barely drink anything, ungrateful creatures
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My sister has a very good method. She floats a feed bowl half full of water in the trough so when you go down to break the ice you just lift the bowl out and there's a circular hole that you can use to get leverage on the rest of the ice.
 
Thanks! Think I will take a football up with me in the morning & try that one! It has just been frozen so thickly that I'm not sure that anything will work!
 
If you re worried about horses not getting enough water try giving two handfuls of speedi beet in a bucket almost full of hot water, makes a very sloppy mash. I add carrots and apples too.
This is how mine stays happy and hydrated.
I also take a container of hot water up in the Terrano every day to top up any icy water that has filled the drainage tank off from the roof.
I have banked up old hay from the haynets around the tub in his field shelter and mostly its keeping the water from freezing.

Today is the first day I ve not had any melt water from the roof. so had to make a second journey to the farm water pipe.
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We are breaking the water on ours morning and night. They are drinking plenty as having so much hay. Also we are adding sugarbeet to their tea to help with the moisture uptake as well.
 
I dont see much point in just breaking the ice, it re-freezes in 5 minutes. Ice needs to be removed to give the horse a longer chance of drinking. A kitchen sieve is fab at removing all the small bits.
 
[ QUOTE ]
A pick axe, or small hand axe is the best thing to break ice with, use a sieve to get the chunks out and please, ice shards are sharp, protect your eyes (says she who has had a ice chip in her eye - it hurts - a lot)

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Ditto, ditto, ditto!! I have a small hatchet in the tractor and use that - also remove large chunks before refilling. I do it am and pm with the horses living out. Removing excess ice delays refreezing by several hours.
 
We don't break the ice, it's just too thick now - about 8 inches and growing every day. I offer every horse a bucket of water before I turn out and each horse has a huge bucket in its stable so they have water from 3pm till 8.30am when they are turned out. they very rarely come in and drink immediately so are obviously happy with the situation
 
Unfortunately, it has got to the point where it is too frozen, we do not have troughs but have to fill up water buckets, my girl has been in alot of the time.
Tomorrow I will pop out a smaller bucket for the day as the big ones are frozen solid!
 
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