Water Heater

[jbmaine]

Hello all, I live in the great State of Maine and have as most people around here do, an issue with my water freezing for my two cows. I currently am using an od fashioned cast iron tub for the water..

#1 What should I buy for a Water heating element?
#2 How Big?
#3 How much should it cost ?
#4 Should I buy a Plastic Stock water tank 100 Gals in stead of using the cast iron tub? My thinking is that the cast iron may conduct to much cold?

Thanks for your input?


JBMaine

[oneokie]

See what your local farm supply store has in the way of heaters. Only advantage to a plastic water tank would be it would probably suffer less damage if it were to freeze solid.

[arabian knight]

Get a plastic one (Poly Tub). And then put in a drain plug heater. they work great.

[rancher1913]

better to invest in a good insulated automatic fountain, less water to heat and always fresh for the animals. I will never go back to "tanks" again. you need to get the proper size but with only two cows about any of them will work.

[Up North]

For two cows one must examine the economics of how much are you gonna spend for your convenience of watering?
If one were to take some old boards and build a wooden box about 3 inches bigger than the tank, then fill in the three inches with insulating material, then build a wooden lid to cover the top of tank. Then cut a round hole just big enough for one cow to stick it's nose through and drink.
If you do put a heater in tank you will save much on energy costs with the insulated box surrounding it. Be sure no electric cords are exposed where a cow could get bored and decide to chew on cord.