How do you not let water freeze in the winter?

Question

My uncle owns a ranch near New Salem, ND (world's largest cow on the hill) and he has two fiberglass waterers that are about 12 foot in radius and about 2 1/2 feet deep used for watering cows. There is no electricity to this pasture, so electric waterers are not an option. The waterers are filled by mechanism much like the tank of a toilet, where once the water level drops, the tank fills from a well water spout.

Is there any conceivable contraption or way you could stop the water from freezing in the winter?

Right now when it drops below freezing we have to spend 15 minutes at each tank breaking the ice and removing it, so the cows can drink. Sometimes it gets so cold the axe won't even work and we have to use a chainsaw.

Answer 1

NRCS in Idaho recommends a contraption that allows the cows to turn on the water. Its called a frost free nose pump.

Here's manufacturer of the nosepump device: http://www.frostfreenosepumps.com/about.html


Another system is a ball fountain, but i don't think these work as well in the cold as the nose pump. Here's a link:

http://www1.agric.gov.ab.ca/$department/deptdocs.nsf/all/eng3133

Answer 2

If there is no electricity how are you getting water from the well?

It sounds like your well water is not frozen. You could just let run continuously. Not practical though, unless your cows can ice-skate.

You could conceivably build a passive gravity-feed closed-circuit solar water heater (see link) but that would be non-trivial. You would always have the risk of a heat exchanger leak contaminating (poisoning) the water.

How about putting a big green-house around the tank? Build it with a timber frame and plastic sheeting. Use plastic strip dock doors for cows to enter and leave. It should get fairly warm inside on sunny days. On really cold days, cows would take shelter inside and heat it with body heat.

Answer 3

You could try putting a buttload of salt in the water tank. That might keep the water from freezing. Might not be too good for the cows though.

Adding a small diameter overflow tube to allow a trickle of water to move constantly through the system can also help reduce the chances of freezing. Depending on how cold your area gets, the overflow tube could freeze up though, and not operate.

If you have multiple watering stations, shutting a few of them down in cold weather can actually help. The cattle will congregate at the open watering stations, and the increased activity at those sites will keep them from freezing up.

Most places that I know of here in Alberta (and I'm hardly an expert in cattle ranching) have electric heaters to keep the watering stations open, but then we just had a week of -30 to -40 weather and it's not even December yet, so our cold is really cold.