Many opinions, odd antidotes, and myths surround the art of how to keep chicken water from freezing in the winter without electricity. We do it here at Hobbit Hill quite simply. It takes about ten minutes twice a day and involves either 5-gallon pails (or milk jugs depending on the size of your flock). The pails will need lids to reduce evaporation, keep poop out and keep it slightly more insulated.
Take a 5-gallon bucket inside and make sure it’s warm and dry. Ensure it’s safe for chickens to drink from without contaminants like paint flakes, oils or rock salt. Chickens come in many sizes. Here at Hobbit Hill Hatchery we only keep standard sized, large chickens. If you have smaller chickens, adjust our directions in proportion to your chickens. Polish with wide crests and some breeds of roosters with super-huge crowns may need wider holes.
Find a permanent marker to mark four holes on the bucket. I used Mason jar lids to make outlines for mine. Measure up 8 inches up from the bottom of the pail to mark where the bottom edge of where the hole will be. The holes ought to be around 2-inches apart. We used a 3-inch hole saw bit to cut ours. The idea is to let the chickens stick their heads in to get a drink, but to insure they can’t get stuck in there. Chickens with thinner neck feathers can use a smaller hole. Only make the hole as large as you have to.
To make sure your holes are the right size, try using a Mason jar ring to measure your chicken’s heads. But, don’t let your neighbors see you out there placing shimmering gold rings on their necks—that leads to the slippery slope of becoming the town’s crazy chicken lady. When laying out the holes this leaves about 1/3 of the bucket unmarked along the back where it will sit against the wall, or even better a corner. We cut four holes, you might need five 2-1/2-inch holes.
Rinse out the plastic flakes left behind after cutting the holes. Fill two soda bottles with hot water and fill the bucket a few inches from the holes. I’ve heard that adding salt to the bottles helps to keep the water from freezing. Physics does not apply to Maine winters; but it doesn’t hurt anything to add salt to the bottles that will be set inside the bucket and never added to the water they actually drink. Our weather is so shockingly different from one day to the next. Your coop water may not freeze over at all one day, but will be solid by noon the next day.
When you arrive at the coop prepare a corner or wall for the bucket. Make it very hard or impossible to tip over. You could use a bungee cord, handle hook or tie it off with rope. Tuck lofty, insulating bedding under, around the back and sides—yes, we all know the chickens will likely dig it out. We can try though.
Sit the bucket on the ground outside the coop to test the water level and NOT spill it inside. Set the hot water soda bottles in and make sure the level is within a half-inch of the holes. Gently sit the bucket in the prepped corner. Set the cover on top and secure it. I can’t open a bucket lid to save my life, so I use a rock.
For this method, you will need TWO BUCKET DRINKERS FOR EACH COOP. This allows you to bring one back to the house to thaw when replacing the other. Often, a hot bottle can simply be swapped out on warmer days. For this to work well depends on the size and quality of your coop, reducing drafts, and the number of chickens you have. How often you need to tend it also depends on these factors.
The water buckets here at Hobbit Hill Hatchery last most of the day here on days 32-15°f, and I will often just swap the bottles mid-day. To get the water out if it freezes solid, flip the frozen bucket over and pour hot water over it. The ice will slide out. I use these round ice hunks to bank my coops. If you’re lucky, once in a while they will pop out looking like a glass of scotch like this one in the photo. This was the goose and duck water bucket—they spill a lot of food from their beaks when drinking, and it ends up looking pretty gnarly.