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Winter Water, Icy Buckets & Hot Buckets….. I recently bought a new horse, and have had to switch around pastures and add water out there. Additionally I was pawing around in the hay loft looking for another heated bucket for her stall. This, along with 3-4 recent conversations with customers and other horse folks in the area has led me to this bit of writing about winter water and buckets. First of all, I am not an electrician. I am not a distributor or seller of a particular brand of heated bucket. I AM however, always looking to make my life a little easier. This alone has made me a big believer of heated buckets. Then add the fact that my horses drink more when the water is not icy & frigid, and I won’t go through winter ever again without heated buckets. My good friends, the Eskers, gave me a couple of heated buckets my first year in my barn here in Parish (2003). In the earlier part of the winter I’d carried hot water from the house when things were SSSSOOOO frozen that I was afraid I’d break the bucket pounding on the ice. I hooked up the stall buckets and viola’ – I was in heaven! The tendonitis in my arms stopped hurting quite so badly, horses were drinking regularly, and ice was not needing to be busted up daily. A few things to note….I have seen several different methods of hook-up of heated buckets. The buckets’ wire DOES have a stop-chew spring wrapping the wire, however, it is never wise to leave any wire/rope/chain hanging in a place that the horse can get at it. They can hook a foot, grab it with their mouth, etc and then you have a potential problem. My favorite hook up in the stall involves hanging the bucket along the corner post, running the wire up through a piece of PVC that is attached to the post, and out the top. I connect to a small appliance type of electrical extension cord and run it to the nearest outlet (mine happen to be up high for hot bucket and summer fan connections). If you have an old barn with exposed wiring, it would indeed be wise to have an electrician help you out! Outdoor pasture buckets---I have 2 16-gallon heated buckets (size of a muck bucket) that I run to the pastures. I run an outdoor extension cord through PVC to the bucket to protect the cord from ice, foot steps, tractor tires, etc. My horses drink a lot more in the winter now that I have the heated buckets in the pasture than they did when I carried ice-cold water to them. I don’t think there is any proof that warm water is BETTER, or that cold water is BAD, but the comfort is obvious. Keeping your horse’s fluids at optimum levels will be his best defense against the cold, and colic. Adequate water in your horse's system allows him to efficiently digest feed and convert food calories into body heat. If you have not ever checked out heated buckets, I’ll tell you this---the water is not HOT! It is not usually even warm! It is, however, NOT GOING TO ICE UP! More water in the horse is never a bad thing. One other note is that most 5-gallon heated buckets use 120 to 130 watts of power—it’s not going to throw your electrical bill into the sky. Check them out on-line. Their available at most any farm & feed or equine tack store. |
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