How To Keep Your Chickens Water From Freezing
If you’ve read any of my previous posts about winter chicken care, you’ll know that I am a firm believer in NOT adding electricity to the chicken coop. You can read Why We Don’t Add Lights To The Chicken Coop for more details on why not.
So, in the snowbelt of Northwestern Pennsylvania, how have I been keeping my chickens from going without fresh water all winter long??
For the past few years I have been giving myself a lot of work! I have two 3 gallon waterers that I have been swapping out throughout the day.
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I’ve also been bringing them in every night to thaw them out completely. And let me tell you, if you forget to bring them in at night those babies are rock solid!!
This was not fun! I don’t have a thick layer of down to keep me warm out there, and I was getting pretty sick of it.
But thank you Lord! I have found a new way! AND I don’t have to raise my electric bill or compromise my beliefs of keeping electricity out of the coop.
Now, this trick is not only a life saver. It is free! But, I will suggest that if you don’t have a plastic gravity waterer, you invest in one. I have had the most success with this!
So what is this magic trick that helps me from running myself ragged in the frigid temps? SALT WATER!!
No, I am not giving my chickens salt water. That would be bad, very bad!
I am making salt water bottles to insert into the waterers. One simple step. That’s it.
Find a 20 oz. bottle (mine was Diet Coke, yes I know not healthy, but we all have our vices), add 1/4 cup salt and fill with water. Close up your bottle and place it in your waterer. That’s it!!
The first day that I tried this, the real feel got down to -7°F (real feel). I checked on it throughout the day and it never once froze!
There was a thin layer on the top of the dish but the chickens easily broke through it to get a drink. And just to be daring, I left it out all night. And guess what? No ice!!
So, what’s the science behind this? Here’s how it was explained to me. While the colder temps are trying to freeze the salt water (which has a lower freezing point) it is pulling energy through the fresh water and therefore slowing the freezing.
This will not stop freezing. Tank heaters can’t even do that. But this does help in giving us less trips to the coop throughout the day.
Do I typically leave the waterer out overnight? No. Especially not on nights that I know that actual temps will be below 0°. But, it is a help on those nights of hovering temps if I can’t make it out to grab it.
So if you’re like us and don’t/can’t add electricity to your coop this will save you endless trips out to refresh the water!
Well there’s one winter problem taken care of! What about eggs? Do you have them all winter? Check out how we manage to here!
Try it out and let us know if it worked for you! What tips do you have to help your flock out in winter?
Looking to raise dual purpose chickens like us? Grab a copy of Dual Purpose Chickens: Raise ‘Em Like Your Grandma Did for tips from brooder box to butchering!
This post was shared onOur Simple Homestead Hop
I live in northern New England, and it’s been in the negatives for a few days last week. This is a great idea! I’ll have to try it. I was just giving them a rubber dish of water & taking hot out a couple of times a day. I only have 7 birds, so no big deal… but if I oculd keep it from freezing without installing a heater in the bucket that would be amazing! I have a bucket with drinker nipples i’d love to keep going in the winter (it’s horizontal, not the hanging on the bottom ones).
It is a lifesaver! On extreme days, if I notice it’s not doing as well, I just increase the salt ratio!
Sorry… doesn’t work when temps are well below freezing. I’ve tried it several times with increased amounts of salt. Bottom line… the fresh water has a higher freezing point than the salt water, thus the salt water stays liquid while the fresh water freezes despite BOTH remaining at the same temp.
It may not keep it completely from freezing in extreme temps but does slow the freezing down, which then decreases the amount of work if you do not want to add electricity to the coop.
Surely a bottle of vodka would work as that doesn’t freeze!
I like your thinking Elaine! Don’t forget to mix yourself a Bloody Mary first!
I bought a $40 (cdn) water dish you plug in. Keeps it from freezing. Best $40 I’ve spent in a long time.
I dont get it. Whats a closed bottle of salt water got to do with the water in the pan? Are you saying put the closed bottle in the water they drink? Sorry, its not clear enough for me yet
Yes I put the closed bottle of salt water into the tank of the waterer. Some amazing people gave scientific explanations for this in the comments. Unfortunately I’m not a scientist lol just a homesteader that happened to stumble across this awesome tip!
Do you know the science behind this ? My fear is that the salt water is leaching out from the interior bottle.
The reason for it helping to keep your water from freezing is that salt water has a lower freeze point than fresh water. The higher the salt concentration the lower the freezing point. The bottle also sinks so it’s submerged in the fresh water. The salt in the bottle it not leaching but the temp. of the bottle is basically tricking the fresh water.
The temp of the salt water would be the same as the fresh water… The salt water wouldn’t freeze though.
This is the best I can explain, as I’m not a scientist just a homesteader sharing my experiences. The reason for it helping to keep your water from freezing is that salt water has a lower freeze point than fresh water. The higher the salt concentration the lower the freezing point. The bottle also sinks so it’s submerged in the fresh water. The salt in the bottle it not leaching but the temp. of the bottle is basically tricking the fresh water.
Cold air draws heat from the fresh water which would normally allow it to solidify into ice, but since the salt water has a lower freezing point heat flows from it into the fresh water keeping it liquid.
I love this explanation! Thank you so much, it makes it so much easier to understand!
Try this at -40 and let me know!
At -7 real feel it worked for me, and from what I’ve researched on it the colder the temps the higher concentration of salt… It may not work for -40 but it will slow down the freezing.
Is that -7 degree F or C? Salt concentration larger than 23% won’t dissolve in the water. That is equivalent to -21 deg C or -6 deg F. So, below -21 deg C (-6 deg F) the fresh water and salt water will both freeze. The reason the fresh water doesn’t freeze at 0 deg C is because, as the temperature falls below 0 deg C (32 deg F) the heat in the system is being taken from the salt water not the fresh water. The freshwater at 0 deg C needs to overcome the heat of fusion to freeze which is 80 kcalories/kg. But the container of salt water gives up heat as the temperature keeps dropping at about 0.94 kcalorie per deg C. And entropy demands that it is preferable/easier for that heat to be extracted from the salt water degree by degree instead of the fresh water for a one-time big grab of 80 kcalories/kg. But, when the air temperature drops below about -21 deg C they both will freeze.
Hi Russ! This was -7F Real Feel or windchill but the temp that day was around 10F.
Thank you for sharing!
Sorry Chris, the actual temps were well below freezing. I also run a daycare and playtime outside is dependent on “Real Feel” and I’m used to speaking in those terms. Sorry again if for my phrasing, just a homesteader sharing my experience in my terms. 🙂
Could you put a 2 liter in goats, dog waters?
Absolutely! Just increase the amount of salt in the bottle. 🙂
I have 2 waterers-frozen solid–sitting near the furnace in my garage right now. We’ve had negative temps for several days & nights. Can’t wait to try this tomorrow!!
I have heard about this for my horse waters but not for a chicken water, and I have yet to get one to try :/ I did read though that you can’t use regular table salt. I don’t remember the name of the type that was suggested but it was a water softening salt for wells???
Have you heard this? What type of salt did you use?
That’s interesting! I did not hear that. I used table salt with iodine. I might have to do another experiment now!
I can hardly wait to try this! We live in WA and occasionally have below freezing temperatures. We have goats and chickens. This could be a huge help!
This makes no sense to me. I understand that the salt water has a lower freezing point, but that doesn’t change the temperature of either the salt water or the fresh water. Please explain the science or the logic of this to me. It doesn’t make sense to me.
This is the best that I can answer as far as the science, unfortunately I’m not a scientist (wish I were sometimes!) just a homesteader sharing my experiences! The reason for it helping to keep your water from freezing is that salt water has a lower freeze point than fresh water. The higher the salt concentration the lower the freezing point. The bottle also sinks so it’s submerged in the fresh water. The salt in the bottle it not leaching but the temp. of the bottle is basically tricking the fresh water.
If you look at my response above, I explained the science.
Didn’t work here in NH. It’s 2 degrees outside and much warmer in my coop and the water is frozen solid.
I’m sorry if this didn’t work. Increasing the salt concentration helps on the colder days. I have left my water out twice with the tray slightly freezing but on the colder nights I do bring it in. I have not had any problems during the day though.
-8F here in Maine this morning – logic tells me that salty water at 32 degrees will be liquid while unsalted water will freeze. Normally I change out the water twice a day in the winter, But, I’m going with a heated metal base and metal waterer this year. The girls have earned it with their egg sales and I coudn’t be happier with my unfrozen water for the first time in all my years of having hens.
No one said what kind of salt? Table salt iodine salt canning salt salt used out side.
Hi Arlene!
I used table salt with iodine. 🙂
Pretty good idea- I’m in Fairbanks Alaska and we’ve been at -20 for weeks and a spat of -30, so I usually use a metal container and bang the ice out every day and give them fresh water every day- if I’m gone for the weekend I use an oil pan heater underneath it-
It’s a matter of freezing point depression. Depends on the molality of the solution (one expression of concentration) and the number of ions produced by the solute as it dissolves. A molecule of salt produces 2 ions when it dissolves in water. Sugar would produce only one. So if equal concentrations of sugar and salt were dissolved into water, salt lowers the freezing point twice as much as sucrose. A molecule that dissociates into three ions would lower it 3x. There’s an equation for calucation the amount it lowers the freezing point. Another factor is the solvent – in this case water. Different solvents are affected differently.
This isn’t really any different than spreading salt on the road to “melt” the ice. It actually lowers the freezing point. Only to a certain point though – an example would be when it gets too cold for the salt to work like we e seen here in the Midwest this past weekend.
So- inside the Coke bottle, the salt water may not freeze depending on concentration. Any liquid contains more thermal energy than it does as a solid. That thermal energy in the salt solution inside the soda bottle helps the fresh water in the surrounding bottle to not freeze. Again, there are limits to how low the temp can go before it fails.
Thank you so much Lisa!
Ok, so how many gallon jugs of high concentration salt water solution would I need to keep a 50 gallon water drum for cattle from freezing?, I have lost too many axe heads splitting ice!
I’m really not sure because it depends on a lot of factors. The temperature. The dissolved solids in the drinking water, etc. Is this an open stock tank? Or does the drum feed a watering device? In the case of a stock tank, I would add a half pound to a pound of salt to a gallon jug of water. To be safe, I’d do a few of those to put in the tank. Assuming they float some, it should keep the tank from freezing over on the top so that the cattle can get to the water.
Your explanation makes no sense. Whereas spreading salt on the road actually mixes the salt with the water and ice on the road, the only communication between the water in the saltwater bottle and the water outside it is conduction of heat through the plastic membrane separating the two, and that is strictly driven by actual temperature, not “thermal energy”. It doesn’t matter at all how much thermal energy is inside the bottle—you could imagine, for example, that you have a nuclear source at 2000K sealed in a capsule with a perfect insulator inside that bottle as well, but as long as the insulator is perfect, the surface temperature of the capsule is the same as the temperature of the surrounding saltwater, and it will do nothing to prevent any water, inside or out, from freezing. (Note that the capsule would quickly explode since its temperature would rapidly climb with no heat escaping.) IOW if the *surface temperature* of the bottle falls below 0°C, it does nothing to keep the external plain water from freezing. In fact, see below.
Cooling is a process of transferring heat from a substance at higher temperature to a substance at lower temperature. The transition from liquid water to ice in fact requires liberating a *lot* of heat—for plain water to go from 0.5°C liquid to -0.5°C ice, for example, liberates a *lot* more heat than going from 4°C liquid to 3°C liquid. (This is why HVAC cooling is measured in “tons”—a ton is the amount of cooling capacity required to freeze (or heating capacity to melt, as the process is conservative) one ton of water in a 24-hour period.)
What you are doing, by putting saltwater in the bottle, is moving the transition point for that liquid to a lower temperature. In this scenario, heat from the water is being transferred from the water in the bucket to the surrounding air (with a small amount also being radiated as infrared or escaping due to evaporation). The rate of heat liberation is determined by the air temperature, water temperature, convection, insulating factor of the material the bucket is made from, the surface area of the bucket and exposed water, and radiative heat sources (e.g. sunlight falling on the bucket). Making some portion of that water not freeze actually will accelerate the freezing of the rest, since that non-freezing water doesn’t need to lose as much heat in order to drop below the freezing point of the surrounding water. This is compounded by the fact that the specific heat of saltwater is lower than that of plain water, i.e. it takes less energy to heat a given mass of saltwater by 1° than it does to heat the same mass of plain water by 1°. That is, the temperature of the saltwater bottle will more readily drop below 0°C, both because of its lower specific heat and because it doesn’t need to undergo a phase transition, so displacing plain water that would not as easily do so simply means less heat needs to be liberated from the whole system to get it below 0°C.
If you want to do a *proper* experiment, you need two buckets of the same type starting at the same temperature, and two bottles also of the same type—one containing saltwater and one containing plain water—at the same temperature, stationed close to one another with no surrounding heat sources, and you need to measure when these two buckets respectively freeze. Just sticking a bottle into a bucket and subsequently observing that the bucket didn’t freeze establishes nothing about what the effect of the saltwater bottle was.
Aren’t you concerned about the chickens ingesting bpa from the plastic?
Both containers are food grade plastic, the bottle and waterer. From my understanding, bpa is leached with extreme heat and the salt does not increase the temperature just lowers the freezing point.
thank you
No problem! ? Thanks for stopping in and checking out my blog! ?
I have several heated water bowls that I use during the winter for our chickens, dogs & cats. I had a few that quit working so I thought I would try your idea with the salt water in the 20 oz bottle, but it didn’t work for me…the water bowl was still frozen solid this morning with temps in the low 20’s?
Hmmm, did you use the correct ratio of salt? I have had the tray freeze on a chicken waterer at night time, with the tank remaining thawed but have not tried this with water dishes.
In the winter, I use a $15 heated dog watering dish. It’s excellent and I don’t fuss. The girls like it fine.
We have had electricity running to our coops for 10+ years without incident. We do not use heat lamps except for ailing birds, but do use the heated waterers. Keep your cords zip tied up and out of the bedding, and there won’t be any problems. Don’t use extension cords with tears in them, etc. I would rather use electricity than methods that are not dependable, and may leave my birds without water. If you are around and check them multiple times daily, it could work for you, but we often are away for the weekend, and this would not work for us.
Thanks for sharing Sarah! I work from home we have fellow chicken friends nearby who help to take care of them if we are away. ?
Why not just make a cookie tin to keep their water from freezing? Mine are just inside the door, keeps the water from freezing, the electric used is very minimal, and they cost so little to make! A cookie tin, you buy them on sale after Christmas and can get any size. Buy a light socket with cord, make a hole in the tin side, put the socket together inside the tine, add a lightbulb, I use 40W, and plug the socket cord to a plug in or extension cord. Dimple! And added plus is the little bit of heat radiated out. I also have a low wattage heat panel for the Silkies to snuggle against when it gets below 25 degrees here.
Those are great ideas Rebecca! At our home though (even though hubby is an electrician, or maybe because) we do not want electricity in our coop and try to find ways to avoid it. You can read bit more about why in my post Why We Don’t Add Lights To The Coop.
Thanks again for other great ideas though!! 🙂
No electricity at my allotments!
Hi Staci! I will definitely have to try this! We live in the mountains, where it routinely gets in the teens to single digits (or colder) at night. Brrrrr. Thanks for posting this! ??
We live in Arizona although it is much warmer here we do get freezing temps as we are near the mountains, that being said this trick works great in this climate. But please keep in mind we rarely see temps below 28 degrees. Thank you for your post.
This is a great tip! I’m thankful that I don’t have to use it since we live in Florida so there is minimal risk of getting to or below freezing. Thanks for sharing on the Waste Less Wednesday Hop!
In one of my breeder buildings alone I have 16 breeding pens, two very large growout rooms, and two large brooder rooms. I keep a 55 gal food grade barrel of water with a floating stock tank heater in it. Only have to fill it every few days. In sub freezing Temps I totally switch to the small black rubber bowls from TSC. They don’t freeze as fast as the thin plastic waterers. Just flip over and stomp the ice out and refill. It has saved me a ton of time winter watering. Much faster than dealing with iced up waterers. As we have a few hundred birds, I detest frozen waterers.
We we tried this with gallon jugs in a 10 gallon Rubbermaid for the horse and it didnt work at all. Will try it in the chickens small water bowl and see if it helps.
I’m not sure about for horses, but the salt concentration has to be high enough. I have read that if you are using it in larger containers, don’t fill they bottle completely so that it will float. 🙂
I tried this last night. Here in Georgia we got down to 18 degrees. Unfortunately something went wrong. I used the 8oz bottles with about 2 tablespoons of salt in the gallon size chicken waters similar to the one shown on your site. The only part that didn’t freeze was right where the bottles were inside the tank part of the waterers. All of the water in the reservoir part of the waterers was frozen solid. I had to redo all of the waterers and noticed that of the salt in the 8oz bottles had settled at the bottom. I did shake them up before placing them in the waterers the day before. What did I do wrong? We are expecting more low temps tonight and I have around 20 waterers I need to have ready. We have a lot of chickens. 🙂
Hi Cathryn! Maybe the larger bottle helps by covering more space in the container. I also left about an inch of the salt bottle empty so the bottle almost stands up straight. The concentration needs to be high enough that all of the salt doesn’t dissolve. I hope this helps!! ❤️ Staci
Hi Cathryn! Maybe the larger bottle helps by covering more space in the container. I also left about an inch of the salt bottle empty so the bottle almost stands up straight. The concentration needs to be high enough that all of the salt doesn’t dissolve. I hope this helps!! ❤️ Staci
Ive tried in 5 gallon and 1 gallon waterers. When it didnt work I even tried adding more salt. I tried both table salt and ice melt type salt…. the water froze.
Its not supposed to stop it from freezing IT SLOWS IT DOWN read you need to get reading glasses
Did you see she said she used 1/4c salt in the bottle?
you can put a box of salt, it DOES NOT WORK!!!!!
I’m sorry if you are having trouble. It seems after speaking with some people that their expectations for it are too high and I need to add some more to my post. This will not completely stop it (even heaters can’t do that in extreme temps). We use it because it slows the freezing down and we have less trips to the coop in the winter.
Lumnah Acres just did an experiment with this! See how it worked for them!
https://youtu.be/xp5OMWZyZhk
It works very well here in England !
I’m so glad! Thanks so much for stopping in!
Staci Samuels – I have the silo type feeder/waterer (not a fan right now but it will have to do until I build my own bigger coop next summer)…Thing it would would work with that? I have the little cups at the bottom instead of the nipples and I’m pretty sure that those cups are going to freeze…but maybe not??
Hmmm That’s really tough to say… It would keep the tank from freezing but I’m not sure about the cups… The tray on mine would crust over but the chickens would break through.
Do you have a facebook page?
I live here in VA and it gets a little cold, but maybe not so cold as PA. Going to try this this year and see how it works for me. Thank you for all your advice. I love reading your stuff!
Why not just give your birds fresh water everyday? Who wants to drink ice water on freezing cold winter days anyway?? Nice tepid water from the house is a great way to keep birds warm and healthy all winter. Yeeesh…I wouldn’t even consider not changing any of my animals water daily.
Water won’t stay tepid in temperatures below 28, even during the day. Therefore you need to keep it from freezing. I am not stating that we don’t change our animals water, but it you were to leave it out over night without methods of keeping it from freezing, you then have to beak apart ice in order to fill the waterer.
Where we live, the water freezes quickly during the day. It’s not a matter of not giving them fresh water every day, but keeping the water from freezing during the day so they have access to water at all times.
Yeeeesh……you would THINK the cold temperatures froze your brain! What part didn’t you understand…that part where she said the water freezes During The DAY! Or that she was going out there several times a day to Take Them WATER! And….what is wrong with letting 1 damn day go by without changing their water! I have BIG buckets, so no dirt gets in to them. And I change them every other day! Quite acting all superior about how you treat your animals! Cause in my experience, if you are acting all appalled about little things like that…you probably are doing Way worse to your animals!
I was thinking that. I can give mine fresh clean water and they will drink from the drain runoff.
Quit* Dumbass
Don’t work. Water froze last night with bottles inside. It was 22 degrees.
It didn’t work. It was 24 degrees and the water tray froze solid.
From a chemical and physics standpoint the dissolution of NaCl in water is an endothermic reaction – which means it requires energy from outside to “fuel” the reaction. The fact that the water in the bottles is not frozen makes no difference – while not frozen the water in the bottles is still the same (or, actually slightly lower) temperature than the water the sealed bottles are contained in. Basically it will help your water freeze. This is a basic chemistry experiment you can do for yourself using an accurate thermometer. It’s one part of a popular lab exercise for chemistry students where they measure the temperature as a function of time for a variety of solutions. There are “salts” (Calcium Chloride, for instance) for which the dissolution in water is exothermic and would generate heat. But not ordinary table salt.
I really wanted this to work. I tried 1/4 cup table salt… didnt work and then I tried 1/4 cup snow melt rock salt…still didnt work. I added extra salt..nope no better. I even tried a smaller chicken waterer…still didnt work. So Im back to the heated base for the metal waterers.
You do realize IT SLOWS THE FREEZING my god how do you even have pets?
Wow that’s so nice. ?
We don’t need something that SLOWS DOWN the freezing, we need something that stops the freezing. And plenty of us have lots of pets, so no need to be snippy about it. This doesn’t work. What works for me is a heated dog’s water bowl and I don’t have it inside the coop. I just run the electric cord up to the run and its inside the run. My chickens were fine and had unfrozen water all winter last year.
HI…I LIKED YOUR TIP ON HELPING YOUR CHICKENS WATER NOT FREEZE. WOW…SIMPLE IDEAS ARE THE BEST IDEAS… THANKS TO YOU & YOUR DISCOVERY…
This won’t work! Salt will help the water freeze. Even in a closed container salt water just slows it. But it will still freeze. Sorry but this is bad advice for people. Just give fresh water every day.
Please reread the post. It states that it slows it down and does not completely stop it. We do replace the water daily. Some days, however, we have to change it multiple times a day because of temps. This has given us less work, because the freezing has slowed down.
Nah didn’t work and its only -3 tonight , shame ,
Didn’t work. Sorry.
Did not work even the salt water in container froze overnight!
My solution is to use a cooler I picked up at. Garage sale,,place the warm water in the cooler and it keeps the water from freezing for an extended period.
Didn’t work for us. And we aren’t even close to negative degree temps. Shucks