Buckets

We're had a long stretch of cold nights - the frost is glistening in the field, on the car. Keeping fresh water for horses is very important and when it freezes in the buckets they are challenged to get drinking water.

We have electric heated buckets, in the stalls and in the pasture. We've had the boys' bucket turned on for almost a week now.

We have a 50 gallon trough, which we used at first but no longer. We got the heating element for it, but we change out the water so frequently that it was a waste of time and water. We use a 10-gallon bucket, changing out the water twice a day.

This summer there were several fatalities in the bucket. Birds and a ground squirrel. Hate seeing that, hate fishing them out. Skip won't drink out of the bucket after a fatality unless it is scrubbed out.