Suggetions for tank de-icers

[bkuhn]

I'm preparing for my 1st winter in freezing weather with livestock and wondered if I could get some suggestions for water. Last year I was at the same place but only had 1 horse, this year I have cattle, horses (3), pigs, and ducks.

1st question is recomendations regarding tank heaters. I've got a large steel stock tank for the cattle (about 250 gallons) and then the rest of the animals will be in the barn if it gets too cold so they will have individual buckets (maybe large 10 or 15 gallon buckets even). I see several types of tank and bucket heaters available. My main question is floating vs. sinking. It seems that the floating would be the most efficient (every time I see the 1500 watt ratings and think of 5 of those running it kills me) since it is just heating a small hole in the ice. I imagine the sinking types need to heat the entire mass of water. Any input regarding which type is preferable (I also picture animals pulling the floating types out but I don't know if that is really true).

2nd question, are there any simple (and relatively cheap) solutions outside of heaters in all the buckets and tanks that I have not thought of? I know that some tanks are available that claim to be "freeze" resistant, but from what I see they are a couple of hundered dollars each minimum. Putting 5 of those in is not practical (and far too expensive) for me considerig I'm only expecting about 1 month of below freezing weather.

Any suggestions that those of you who have more experience than I could offer woud be greatly apprecaited.

Thanks!
Brad

[wr]

I hate those miserable floating heaters. *They tend to quit when it's super cold out and you have to chop them out of the ice. *The do incredibly ugly things to your electric bill and the odd one will short and water is a great conductor. *I would recomend you do some further shopping and hunt down a propane heater. *They tend to be a bit pricy but cheaper to run in the long run. BTW, how cold is cold. If you tend to be kind of cold and not -40 cold, you may be able to get away with a ball in your stock tanks. You'd be amazed at how well it works, they still ice up but not nearly as bad and all you have to is smack the ball and the ice literally shatters, fork it out, if need be and you're good as long as you have stock drinking even a reasonable amount.