Things you dislike having to do this time of year

old

Well-known Member
Well I just came in from having the mess with one of the water tanks I have for the horses and goats. This time of year I try to keep a slow trickle of water going so as to not have it freeze over but that only works part of the time. I noticed when I went out and check for eggs that the goats where all at the tank so went and checked it and sure enough ha as layer of solid ice on top. So I had to break the ice and then pull piece out so they could get water. You ever notice no matter what gloves you might try to wear to do that you hands get cold and wet and boy that cold sure goes a long ways
 
Maybe you could use ice tongs. I have also used a clean manure fork to fish ice out of a tank years ago, it seems like it worked but I can't recall how easy it was.
Zach
 
i always hated breaking ice on the tanks,thats one thing i wont miss. last few years i used automatic heaters on the tanks and they worked well most of the time. theres nothing i really like about cold weather!everything seems to be about twice as hard in the winter.
 
Right with'ya. Had a pipe froze this morning for no reason whatsoever. I've got two that slope out through the barn to fill tanks. Have a short piece of hose on the high end of each one of'em that I hook to the frost proof hydrant in the other end of the barn. One of the pipes was froze this morning. Tried the little propane torch,a pail of hot water,couldn't get it. Had to take the cutting torch down there. Heated both ends,figured it had to be at one end or the other. Nope,was right in the middle where there's good slope. Of course it took me an hour to get to that point.
 
Hey "Old", I feel for ya, but I can't quite reach ya..LOL

We've only had to break ice here a couple of times. If it gets any colder I'll put in the auto tank heater...DON'T like to break ice!!!!!

Hope ya had a Merry Christmas
 
When I put new rail fence up I was going to dig in a frost free hydrant @ the water trough. Wife raised a fit about messing the yard up, which I would have. She was sick then, so I left it alone, but it would have been nice. Pull my water hose, 100 footer into heated barn now.
 
Hey I see you crawled out from under your rock and came up to see the light LOL. I learned to hate them electric tank heaters years ago when I went to check on one and got the *^&%^# zapped out of me. Unplugged it and threw it just as far as I could and that wasn't far enough
 
Oh, so now ya let the cat out of the bag!!! We now know what yer problems are...lol lol lol

Just could not resist that response

Gotcha!!!

Just been out side enjoying the nice beautiful sunshine and spring weather...
 
Old I was told just a week ago or so that system was fool proof if it was done right for keeping tanks thawed out.

It would be tough to regulate the flow.Either not enough water running to keep from freezing or to much causing an over flow on the tank is my thoughts.

Never ending adjustments.

Just my observation.
 
What do I dislike having to do this time of year? STEP OUT THE DOOR! Plain and simple. Took care of animals the old fashioned way for 40 years so I do sympathize with you guys and gals who have to deal with frozen water every morning. When I was a kid in school I had to fire up the smokey cob and wood fired tank heater every morning before school. When I finally got the draft right so the smoke went up the chimney and not back out the door I really thought I had accomplished something. Here in NWIA if we left a hose running we would have a huge skating rink for the rest of the winter. Jim
 

Get some ducks to swim in it. I drove by a lake yesterday that was frozen except for a little area where there were some ducks.
 
Didn't happen too often here, but would sometimes have a week or two of near zero. We sure weren't set up for it. Remember sitting on a stool, thawing milking machine pulsator with a propane torch, when I was 7 or 8. Dad milked with one, while I thawed the other, then we'd switch. Meanwhile, water pipes and troughs were freezing up all over the place. Not much fun.
 
Most of the time my system works just fine but once in a while it gets knocked out of whack and when it does you have to play with it. I have an over flow set up so the extra water goes into a pond I have. To bad I do not have it so the pond waters the animals but the pond just isn't in the right place and boy ponds are very very hard to move LOL
 
Fixerupper's got it right. While I've lived my whole life in it r near NE WI, and can take the cold as well as anyone, I can't sa I like it. It's a toss up which I dislike more, the cold or the short days. Not sure why I live up here, but June, July, and August in a warmer climate sounds pretty miserable too.

Glenn F.
 
Years ago we had a sand point driven into a side hill about 50 foot. Water would gravity fill the tank from the sand point.

Had an over flow on the tank that ran to a creek.

That worked fairly well all winter if the ground was fairly moist. The flow would dry up quite often though.

Gary
 
Ya a lot of the time the horses can get water from a spring but when your 12 inches behind in rain some how that spring water just doesn't make it down the little branch to the area where the horses can get is since it drys up and goes under ground before getting that far
 
Just got in from unthawing my main central water, we have three. Feed lines are buried 8 ft deep but have to come up under water. Have 12 inch pipe with line coming up in center of it about 6 feet down with a light bulb hanging in there to keep feed line unfrozen. Frost around here will set in to ground to 6 or 7 ft deep some times under the waterers so you can't have it just in ground under the waters. Was'nt that bad today, just a burnt out light bulb. Replaced that and aimed a heater down well under water for a while then had to fill water itself with hot water to thaw valve in there.(Cows and sheep had drank it dry after line froze.) Coarse cows are thirsty and trying to drink as fast as I'm pouring 5 gal buckets into it. Get sorta funny look when they realize it's warm water and go to eating snow. Trickling hose around here wouldn't cut it! Heaviy flowing rivers freeze solid on top when it gets this cold! If I win the lottery I'll geta hired man and spend winters down where your at Old, down where it's nice and warm. LOL. Rocko.
 
Left Indiana for Tennessee three years ago, ain't never going back. 30 is cold here, always warms back into the 50s in a couple of days.
 
Old: A buddy of mine who had horses put a air bubbler that he used in a fish tank in the bottom. It kept just enough water moving not to freeze. I don't know if that was a redneck fix or taler fix or both, but it worked.
 
I hate feedin cows in slush and slop, specially since I fell arse over tin kettle on it, wednesday. Today was much better, no slush, just a 40 mph wind and upper thirties temps. Where'd I put that sarcasm button??
 
I dislike all those things, too. However, this year, I've been under the weather for the past couple of weeks. Kind of a walking pneumonia, sore throat and bronchitus rolled into one. So things have been a bit different around here. I call the g-son and SIL and tell them to do the feeding. These cold windy days like today, I've stayed in and been good. AH, the good life. I may just be able to milk this one til spring.....
 
i had a new barn built late last year never got water to it yet.the barn is about 100ft. from the house i run a garden hose up to it.then blow the water back toward the house with a aircompresser works great so far.
RICK
 
The springs in my sisters field have run downhill and flooded over about 3 acres turning it into a skating rink. I managed to find a source of the water with the tractor yesterday and nearly got stuck.
 
Rocko, back in the day I used to use rough service light bulbs for heat. They lasted longer. Seems like about 25 years ago they cheapened up the light bulbs so they didn't last as long. A 60 watt light bulb under a hog water used to last a whole winter but after they were cheapened up a regular bulb would only last a month. Jim
 
Since I don't have any livestock, winter is a lot more pleasant. I can actually pick the days I want to work outside, frozen water lines are not an issue either.
 
Ya know how that on is also. I do mine which is a mile long just to have the but head who has horse on his land but my drive is on so he drives in before I am done so it takes me 3 hours to do a job that should take 1.5 hours due to him not being able to wait till I am done
 
Old just put an orifice in a fitting and put it on the end of your hose. I used to have some waterers that used a system like that to keep them from freezing. That way you would not be fighting to get the flow set right. Plus a small orifice would shoot a jet out and keep the water moving in your tank. I had several of the orifices and they had the gallons per hour wrote on them. It was real low too like 10-20 gallons per hour.
 
Problem with that is I have a Y at the end where one side goes to the goat water tank and the other side to the horses and I also have a bad spot that I need to fix in the hose which right now is an ice sculptor due to a small hole in the hose which of course shoots a stream of water up so it makes a neat sort of ice sculptor
 
Bringing in fire wood. Having a mostly wood heated house when I was 40 seamed like a good idea, but at 70 now it is a pain in the, you know where. Stan
 
Silo unloaders and barn cleaners.They are both a pain in cold weather.Why does a wore out barn cleaner chain that worked fine all summer start jumping off one a week in cold weather.Frozen silage is real fun as well it takes forever to fill the TMR mixer and the wind always finds away inside our silo room making it the coldest spot on the farm.
 
Yep that I can relate to and is why I am on electric heat. Ya my shop has a wood stove but that is it. Only chain saw I can run any more for more then a few minutes is an electric one due to how heavy they are and the vibration
 

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