Winter woes - water and feeding

jenbleep

jenbleep

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Good morning :) now I'm doing this on my blackberry so please excuse my spelling/grammar. My keys are small!

How are you all coping with this cold weather? Charismas owner said she was neighing a lot last night-not sure why she didn't go out but when I went to the yard this morning her automatic water was frozen. How do you keep it running?!

I smashed the ice on the trough outside but within 10 minutes it was starting to freeze over again!! I know the ball trick, but what else can I do? If it isn't windy then won't it just freeze around the ball?!

Then I turn them out and harry the pony is eating the haylage, but charisma is eating blades of grass that she might find through the snow. She loses weight easily and I'm stressing-i jusyt want her to be healthy! I'm going to start feeding her three times a day but would really prefer her to eat lots of haylage...she eats her food fine. Time for teeth check?

This weather is hard!!!
 
Bucket of water in her stable.....

I am now carrying a 25 litre container in the car as a 'just in case' - and fill it up each time I get home & this provides fresh 2 buckets of water. Means I can fill my mare's water tub 2 x per day in the stable - or just top it up in the morning & put any extra into a tub in the field in the afternoon.
The only tank that isn't 'solid' so far is the huge big black plastic tank and I fill this at weekends (got the yard tap going late yesterday afternoon eventually) and filled this to 3 inches from the top. I just keep removing the ice into a smaller tub next to it - doing this 2 or 3 times a day.
The fuzzyies now come over each time the ice is broken & are able to drink their fill at least morning & afternoon (and lunchtime if a mate can pop in to crack the ice if needed).
If worst comes to worst, I dipped a bucket into the field tank & bring this into the stable for the big one till I started bringing home the container.

Good luck
 
My least favourite part of winter is frozen water pipes........ Especially as the shirex drinks loads! Normally our pipes have unfrozen by the afternoon but as a back up we have three water containers that we keep filled up, this does their water buckets (for two) and feeds as they both have fast fibre. We also have a kettle so can use warm water on feeds.
 
Thanks for your replies!

I've got two large tub trugs for the both of them that they can have-does that not freeze over night too? I hope the hose defrosts by this afternoon so oi can fill the buckets...agh hate this cold doesn't make anything easy!
 
Hi at midnight last night it was -13 here in rural Shropshire. This morning there were ice crystals on the inside of the stable walls, the haynets,but not the hay,were frozen. Water frozen,but they had drunk most of the bucket anyway.The manure was frozen into hard piles except that freshly done, and they have deep straw beds! I've never known it this cold. We are soaking sugarbeet in the kitchen and having to take water to the stables in containers,which are keeping filled in the kitchen to keep them liquid.
 
My pipes tend to defrost in the afternoon for about an hour so I fill their water buckets to the brim and I also fill a wheelie bin and black bin. They are new ones that I bought for feed but when weather is like this the feed can stay in its bag.

When water froze in their buckets last year I moved buckets to the back of the stable and insulated them with hay. Helped a bit.
 
Take the ice out of the trough as you break it - it will help to slow the re-freezing process again. I got really picky and was running a sieve round the trough to take out all the tiny bits to keep it clear as long as possible.
Give up on the water drinkers and go back to old fashioned buckets of water in the stable.

They seem to get used to only being able to drink at certain times when the weathers like this.

With feeds, back in January when it was last like this, I was taking the bucket of beet and morning feeds home with me every night and leaving them in the kitchen, so they wouldn't be frozen in the morning.

It becomes a great big grind when the weathers like this, we have it so easy generally these days and we take it all for granted until the weather gets like this.
 
I'm using buckets of hot water from the house for the stable and field waters and using boiling water to make a nice hot sugar beet feed morning and night. The carrots are staying in the house too so the horses have some 'warm' succulents in their feeds :-)
 
I keep mine at home so that makes it easier (house on site) but also harder (it's my responsibility).

Last year my pipes froze then burst, so I had to keep the water turned off all winter. was carting water out from the house for months as no point getting them fixed till it had warmed up. This year I've learnt my lesson so,

1) All pipes were lagged with thick foam insulation
2) Taps all wrapped up too.
3) abandon waterers, they'll never cope
4) Turn off water every night - and drain taps after you've done it!!!
5) Use a greenhouse heater to defrost taps during the day
6) Use tubtrugs for water - kicking them breaks the seal of ice
7) Main hose now out of action. But I keep a short length (about 4ft) with fittings on both ends. Makes filling water containers easy, I take it into the house each night so it doesn't freeze.
8) Beg or steal as many water containers as you can.

I love the snow, but last winter was hard hard hard. This one looks like it's going to be very long :rolleyes:
 
Yeah it is hard going in the snow and ice...we have had plenty and it was minus 10 on Sat night. I just carry on as normal, as best I can but I am lucky as my horse is a 3 min walk from my house. I break and clear the ice from his water twice a day and he is turned out as normal on his strip grazed field...just given him a bit more so he can ferrit through the snow for it.
If the tap at home freezes then he has to have dry hay in his stable at night rather than soaked.
Pick his feet out of snow and ice before he goes in at night, cover his outside water bucket over so there is less ice to break. I also put all the ice I break in a separate bucket so that I do not waste the water...when it thaws I can re-use it. I have water butts attached to my field stable and can usually use these throughout all winter without needing to cart water from home...I have 6 of them all full!
Horse is not bothered at all...just wants to go out to play find the grass!
 
Great thanks for all your replies everyone!

Last night the automatic drinkers stopped working - before they just had a film of ice on the top! Both had tub trugs of water in, but when I went in this morning both were empty :( What can i do go to the yard at 12am!!! Poor guys. I think they're adapting to the cold though, even though I'm trying my hardest.

I always take out the ice after I have smashed it - can't see why anyone would leave it in because it would probably freeze togehter again. This morning I didn't have any balls ;) so filled two soya oil containers with some water and put them in the trough. Hopefully the water won't freeze around them!

I think Charisma seems a bit down! I turn them both out and Harry goes right for ther haylage while Charisma just walks around trying to find blades of grass :( And looking around. When I drove past at 8.45 she was at the haylage so that made me :) I do worry that she's not getting all she needs. She is very warm though :D

Luckily the tap outside the house is working (the hose is frozen solid) so I can make sugarbeet and do buckets from there.

This is hard!!
 
Please be aware that when the thaw comes there may be bursts. This happened some winters ago when we were at livery. At morning stables some horses stables were sodden wet with floating bedding, some stables quite deep in water,some less so. Also one stable had a shower/fountain of water from the automatic drinker feed pipe,splurting out all over, the poor horse and its rug were drenched.
 
horsesforever1 said:
Please be aware that when the thaw comes there may be bursts. This happened some winters ago when we were at livery. At morning stables some horses stables were sodden wet with floating bedding, some stables quite deep in water,some less so. Also one stable had a shower/fountain of water from the automatic drinker feed pipe,splurting out all over, the poor horse and its rug were drenched.
Click to expand...

No! Think they should be turned off them until we get back into milder temperatures. So in a month or so then!
 
horsesforever1 said:
Please be aware that when the thaw comes there may be bursts. This happened some winters ago when we were at livery. At morning stables some horses stables were sodden wet with floating bedding, some stables quite deep in water,some less so. Also one stable had a shower/fountain of water from the automatic drinker feed pipe,splurting out all over, the poor horse and its rug were drenched.
Click to expand...

This happended to my baby the other night but not quite so bad as that, I got to the yard early saturday morning to find the water feeder overflowing, dont know how it had happened but it had been running for hours the whole floor was soaked! Luckily I do really thick straw beds so the top was dry but my poor weanling didnt look like she had laid down all night! :( At least she was dry!

The yard owner has turned the water off now as they're all frozen anyway but I've tied my ballcock up inside the feeder so even if he turns it back on mine wont fill! Going to stick to my buckets from now on! xx
 
Re pipes bursting - if it's not your yard, suggest to the owner that they turn water off every night and then drain the pipes! The reason they burst(sorry for stating the obvious) is that the water expands when it freezes. So what I do is, just before I've finished yard chores, the very last thing I do is put a bucket under the tap, leave it running, the shoot inside the house and turn the water off at the stopcock. Because I've left the tap open, it carries on until all water has been emptied. No water in pipes = no expansion = no burst pipes :)

And when it comes to turning them back on again, that's best done in daytime! Other thing to note is that, despite the best efforts, the -10 we had the other night already split the plastic float mechanism in my waterer, causing it to overflow. Will wait until we get a decent warm spell before replacing that- then figure out how to drain those too :rolleyes:
 
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