Reddit mentions of Brower 7GF 7-Gallon Poly Poultry Fount

Please do not use a heating element. Even with those temperatures, you can find passive solar methods and use significant and efficient insulation to provide a much more consistent source of heat, as well as completely safe.

If the Inuit people can utilize igloos to stay warm...utilizing ICE.....you and your hens will be fine.

Water:

I utilize water dispensers like this, however they are painted flat black color, including the exterior of the red water saucer. I used a flat black paint that was as close to water-proof childrens paint as possible.

I am currently in the works to attach a irrigation designed heating element for my buried irrigation line/micro drip system, that is attached to my 4 water dispensers. (I attached a water-tight port for my micro-drip emitters to click into, and automatically provide water every other day, when the winter irrigation comes on via the Rain-Bird system).

If the summer water line fails, I will simply attach a hose to the drip system tubing, along with the heating element, and turn on as needed.

I also determined I had to install a backflow prevention valve a little before the first micro-emitter. This prevented water siphoning back into the tubing, or the siphon suction from the dispenser pulling more water and eventually air through the tubing, effectively emptying the dispenser.

Besides this, I have the dispensers sitting ontop of a new, large, and hot compost pile, with burlap covering the top, preventing compost from being scratched into the water.

Food

Plenty of good quality chicken scratch, but not enough to prevent natural consumption of their normal feed.

I also include fatty black oil sunflower, and I mix in high-protein/carb meat-bird feed into the layer pellets...this is feed normal for meat-birds. I mix in about 1 to 4 parts for early and late winter, and 1 to 3 or 2 parts for deep/mid-winter. Do not use this exclusively, it will hurt the liver and kidneys of your layer hens.

I provide daily a tub of a warm pre-cooked mixture of wild and normal spinach, lambs ear, Amaranth, lentils, alfalfa, stinging nettle, kale, fartichoke grated tubers, (jeruselum artichoke) and several other various grains and greens.

This is the major winter-feed source I grow for my flock. I dedicate a lot of square footage to either high-carb, protein rich, or nutrient dense greens and grains. Whatever I harvest specifically for storage, I blanch/strain, or steam until the greens/grain is lightly cooked. This also reduces the amount of nutrient loss or moisture content.

I then freeze these mixes in bread-pans, and then brick them in my deep freezer.

A lot of what I grow, specifically Amaranth, buckwheat, lentils, millet, sorghum, beets and jeruselum artichoke tubers....can be harvested and stored dry or root storage, and cooked at time for serving. Amaranth stores so well, I often have it sprouting and growing where I dragged out a stalk for the chickens to peck at. I cook buckwheat, sorghum, beets, and fartichokes, and sometimes Amaranth... everything else is either added in or tossed as a chicken scratch.

I have now been supplementing freeze-dried black soldier fly larvae. Still perfecting the freeze-drying/storing.



Hen House Heat:

I painted the metal roof to the hen house flat black. In the Summer, the hen house is in full shade from 11am to sunset, due to being situated directly underneath a very large Cotton-wood canopy. In fall and winter, the tree is bare, allowing the roof to have full sunlight all day until 1 hr before sunset.

I have stacked straw bales alongside each wall of the hen house, past their roost height, but not impeding the vents. I made sure that the bales are secure with nylon line and chicken wire....you dont want a bale falling onto your flock!

I have tacked on black landscaping poly-plastic against the door of the hen house, which faces East and gets first morning light and full sun until 2pm winter. I remove the fence-staples in mid-spring, and clean, roll-up and store the poly plastic for next winter. Temps on the coldest days (4 below of 5 above)....hen house temp was easily around 30-35 degrees.

I have designed and installed passive solar heat, by building a shelf or rack against each wall exposed to sun(except the door), and then stacking flat-black jugs full of water against the coop walls. The jugs absorb considerable heat from any sun, and emit it into the walls of the coop, well after sunset.

No electric, gas, or even solar panels/batteries (except my solar powered chicken door).

FYI~Ventilation is very important. If you do not provide consistent dry litter, as well as a well ventilated coop....you risk respiratory issues, and frost bite. Even if your coop is dry, your flock expires a significant amount of moisture in their breath every night. If this does not rise and escape, it settles onto the flock, and freezes.
____

Chicken Run:

I have grown living wind-breaks to prevent the normal cold cross-winds from hitting the flock. I have also provided snow shelters around the coop and in areas that get full sun. Snow shelters are teepees of plywood, with a little straw inside. I don't want to make the shelters too comfortable as to encourage nesting.

I have several extra bales of straw that I set down ontop of snow and ice along their common trails. It keeps feet warm and drier, helps the trails melt, and keeps the trails from getting muddy.

I make the entire chicken run a large compost floor. Right now, is when I lay down several layers of compost materials; manure, grass clippings, leaves, straw. Never more than 4 inches in the drip line of the cotton wood tree. More outside of the drip line. It definitely is warmer, even in an open-air 40'x40' chicken run.

_____

My friend crocheted black chicken sweater-vests, But I recommended that she stop. Chickens floof-out their feathers when cold to help retain heat. With a sweater, it prevents the faloofing they do.

Example of floofing. (made up word)