How many use heated water buckets??

Miniature Horse Talk Forums

Help Support Miniature Horse Talk Forums:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Nope Mindy you are not alone, I don't have heated buckets or trough heaters, heck I don't have running water or electricity at my mini barn. I haul all the water for 8 of 12 minis; the four geldings share a pen that is adjacent to the bull pasture, so there is a tank with hydrant, but no electricity. [i almost got a new water line in a few years ago, but the guy with the backhoe flaked out and didn't come to dig the trench.]
 
Interesting responses...

Michigan (Mindy) and NE Montana (chandab) -- which have got to be w-a-y colder than foothills of western WA (my area) -- don't use heated water sources.

Perhaps I spent way too much on things I don't need?

It begs one question... how long can a horse go without water?

One last thought... I'm puzzled about the comments regarding electricity usage? Granted, we only have a few buckets heated at any one time. But if it's smacking your electric bill, it seems odd to me. I don't know what other people feel is expensive on their electric bill, but if you're noticing it, perhaps something is not functioning correctly?
 
Interesting responses...

Michigan (Mindy) and NE Montana (chandab) -- which have got to be w-a-y colder than foothills of western WA (my area) -- don't use heated water sources.

Perhaps I spent way too much on things I don't need?

It begs one question... how long can a horse go without water?

One last thought... I'm puzzled about the comments regarding electricity usage? Granted, we only have a few buckets heated at any one time. But if it's smacking your electric bill, it seems odd to me. I don't know what other people feel is expensive on their electric bill, but if you're noticing it, perhaps something is not functioning correctly?
At the barn where I board, we just had an otherwise healthy middle aged horse die of colic caused by an impaction. He had access to water at all times, but the heated buckets hadn't come out yet for the winter. I had noticed that he wasn't drinking a lot of water in his stall- hard to tell what he was doing outside. His owner doesn't know what caused this colic. It was just such a sad situation. My farrier told me that he has already heard of about 20 colics this month with his client's horses.

I'm sure that a horse can go without water for quite a while- just like a person or any animal can. But why risk it if you can, for a relatively small investment per horse, give them access to drinkable water at all times? Studies have shown that horses will drink much more water in the winter if it isn't ice cold. Of course, not every place is set up to use heated buckets. But if not, the water really does need to be attended to multiple times a day in below freezing temps. Or try insulating the bucket.
 
I swear by my heated buckets.I have had multiple impaction colics during all seasons.I have several horses that are fed senior feed, powdered electrolytes, and shredded beet pulp dumped in a 5 gallon heated bucket with about 2 gallons of water in it,.It insures that that are drinking.We also use heated buckets for karl's sheep.If I had the receptacles in the kennel the outside dogs would have heated buckets too.It isn't even winter yet and I am looking forward to spring.Hope all critters make out fine this winter.
 
Sadly. I don't have heated buckets. So yes. Beating ice out of 14 buckets and 3 troughs is what we do. and I'm in Pennsylvania. Its already been heck. and I dont even have to feed every day. (board at my grandmothers, between her horses, my horses, and my cousins horses we all take turns feeding) So I'm gonna try insulating everything this year...hopefully it works.

Oh and don't think I havent begged for heated buckets. But my grandmother forbids it. Cause apparently it will make her electric bill too high. I don't know if thats true or not. But I do know when I have my horses at my own place heated buckets will be the first thing I buy hahaha.

Not only do I want feeding to be easier on myself, my grandmother, and my pregnant cousin I also want to be sure that the horses have access to water at all times. I have a colic prone QH gelding who gets salt in his feed when its cold and mineral oil once a week. But its not gonna help make him drink if the water is frozen lol.

He was fine last year knock on wood. I hope he will be fine this year. But like I said I'm going to insulate the buckets. And if my grandmother has a problem with me insulating all the buckets (because she has a problem with everything I want to do) then I will just insulate my four. And maybe my cousin's horses buckets if she wants me to.
 
oh... great... colic risk. I haven't fully figured out laminitis yet. ...all I need is colic potential.

I have set the alarm; gone out and checked; the two girls water didn't start freezing until well after midnight; most of the freezing seemed to occur early in the morning (between 3 and 5 AM.) So at most, the girls went about 4 hours without access to water. I genuinely don't know if that's good enough.

Hopefully next year we can work on the barn more and have non-icing buckets. Or maybe I just have to haul hot water out there more frequently.
 
Unless you have a particularly sensitive horse, having water all day long should work just fine, if it freezes late at night til first thing in the morning, you should be ok, I've found my horses really don't drink that much overnight when it's really cold. As long as they have daily access to open water, they should be fine.
 
This winter I have two geldings separated from my 3 girls, and I fill there water up in am, and bring in a small bucket for night feeding, this year I put the water bucket in the muck bucket, yes it has some manure in the bottom, but I also took old hay and made a nest around the bucket covered it with a towel, and it never froze, we have had cold days like 20's, I also bought some quilted material and some kind of felt like stuff to line it with, thinking I may put it between the quilted material, anyway I am making blankets for there heated buckets, uses less electric and washable, and not near as expensive as buying them already made.
 
One problem with horses can be that just because water isn't frozen, or the ice has been busted, it can hurt their stomaches to drink water that is very cold especially if they have ulcers, which aren't uncommon in horses. If they do not drink as much as they should, it can cause colic. Then you have some who prefer cold water over heated. I had horses for a winter or two before deciding to use heaters, and then switched to heated containers later. Last winter was the first time we decided to leave both the unheated containers and the heated ones out, and they seemed to like having the choice.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
One problem with horses can be that just because water isn't frozen, or the ice has been busted, it can hurt their stomaches to drink water that is very cold especially if they have ulcers, which aren't uncommon in horses. If they do not drink as much as they should, it can cause colic. Then you have some who prefer cold water over heated. I had horses for a winter or two before deciding to use heaters, and then switched to heated containers later. Last winter was the first time we decided to leave both the unheated containers and the heated ones out, and they seemed to like having the choice.
This is so true. The only time I've had problems with colic is when the temps did a nose-dive and I didn't have heaters in the tanks early enough. Especially with the youngsters. They stop drinking (or just don't drink enough) and end up with colic. Which can be expensive (or deadly). The older horses don't seem as finicky, but if you heat that water, it's amazing how much more the older ones will drink, too. Cost of the heaters and the electricity is well worth the insurance. Not sure how much extra juice your heaters are pulling?? Just look at the wattage on the package. And then multiply that x 24 hours in the day x the cost for killowatt hour, and that will give you a ball park on what it will cost you to run the heaters. That's why I like the 125 watt built in buckets, as well as the 250 watt rings.
 
I heat my main water trough... I have too... it gets cold enough to freeze a 150 gallon water tank solid.
 
i have used them for years and still using the first one i bought. a friend lost a horse one winter because he didn't get enough to drink (Calif. horse never saw ice before. after that tragedy i quickly bought 1 for my horse. i am so happy that i did.
 
Sometimes you just have to let it go!

On our last cold morning (with the two girls' bucket frozen in the morning) I slogged out there with my hot water jugs (carefully prepped with the correct combo of boiling water to hot tap water so I don't melt the milk cartons.) I finished in the barn, went outside, and there's Baby eating snow from right next to their melted/heated water. I guess her tender tummy must not be bothered by cold; I saw Nicky doing the same thing, and his dish never freezes over. After reading the article (link posted by Kendra) I meant to measure the temperature on our water dishes. The weather warmed, and I didn't get to it in time.

And if I'm going to worry about colic, I suspect I should worry about dirt (sand) impaction, because all three of them have shown a sudden interest in pawing at the gopher dirt piles and doing something to get their noses all dirty (hopefully not eating dirt.) I give up.
 
Last edited by a moderator:
I use a "muck bucket" sized heated bucket that sits next to a 100 gallon metal heated tank. I keep a clean bucket hanging on the fence and I use it to fill the 16 gallon muck bucket. Any time I have warm enough weather that the hose is not frozen, I take advantage and refill the 100 gallon tank.

We do not have electricity in the stalls so this is what we do instead. If I have to stall someone, I just try to get out quickly each morning to break up the water with hot water from an electric kettle. We do have electricity in the tack room.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top