Chickens for bug control and food recycling.

[Ridgerunner]

What's a frost free hydrant?

This link has drawings to show how it works. Maybe you could print it off and color it in to help pass time in your horrible Texas winter weather.

http://www.woodfordmfg.com/woodford/Installation/How Hydrant Works.pdf

There is a drain hole and valve down below where it can freeze. When the water is flowing the drain hole is sealed. When you shut it off the water flow stops and the drain hole opens. That way water drains out of the riser so it can't freeze. All this happens well below the freeze line.

Since my weather is so mild I only have to bury mine 2' to get below any possibility of freezing. I suspect @seedcorn has to go deeper, at least 3' and maybe 4'. Installing it was a piece of cake, I had a fellow with a back hoe dig it out and a plumber install it. All I had to do was write checks.

But I've had to dig it out a few times. One was that the licensed plumber didn't know what hew as doing and over-tightened the water line connection to the tapered backflow valve. The pipe split underground several months later. A steady constant serious leak. I was less than happy, both with the plumber and with whoever designed a tapered screwed pipe connection.

Since that drain hole is open, it's possible sand or tiny gravel can get inside and mess up the valve. It's not only possible it happened. When I repaired that (actually replaced the hydrant) I wrapped a good quality landscaping cloth around the drain, help in place by zip ties. To give a good place for the water to drain I laid down piece of that landscaping cloth on the dirt below the drain, filled in with pea gravel to above the drain hole (with extra for settlement), and put another layer of landscaping cloth on top of the pea gravel to keep the dirt from settling in among the pea gravel and plugging anything. Then I filled the hole to the surface with dirt.

I only had to hand-dig a hole deep enough to get to this 2' deep connection and make it big enough so pipe wrenches would fit. I did the repair/replacement work lying on my belly reaching down in that hole. That's another reason I'm grateful I live in a mild climate, I hate to think how deep our friends up north would have to go to repair theirs. These hydrants do make it possible to have water flowing outside instead of having to carry water from in the house when it's well below freezing outside.

I installed this when I ran water and electricity to the chicken coop. That electricity allows me to put my brooder in the coop and not in the house which helps me stay married. But the water down there is what is also extremely beneficial. I always have it for the chickens, it's where I hook up my hoses when I want to water the garden or anything else, I wash my garden produce before bringing it in the house, I hook up there when I butcher chickens, and I clean the stuff I don't want to bring in the house to wash. Having water down there is extremely convenient. Having it so I don't have to worry about it ever freezing is a huge bonus.

 

[PennyJo]

@ducks4you Thank you we will pick some up saved the website

 

[baymule]

Thanks @Ridgerunner that really explains it well. The adult coloring page was an added bonus. We had water run to several places and I put cut off valves on every single one. That way, I can turn the water off, open the faucet and not get a busted pipe sticking of of the ground. I like your idea better. We had 4 days of freezing weather last week. Not too bad.....

Our double wide had one faucet in the front and one in the back. Watering animals entailed carrying buckets or linking multiple water hoses, then putting them up. With 3 new faucets, I feel positively wealthy.

 

[Beekissed]

Here's an idea I may borrow and modify for my own use this next fall....

 

[PennyJo]

We will have to move where are leaves are give the birds access to them

 

[Beekissed]

We will have to move where are leaves are give the birds access to them

They got no leaves in WA state??? I didn't know that!

Here's some pics of temps in the coop at mid morning today....it was a balmy, breezy 45* outside the coop and this at roost height inside the coop....

And two different readings of the biomass of DL directly under the roosts at that time....keep in mind this mass hasn't had any moisture added except from the feces, the materials, the humidity in the soil and air. Also keep in mind that this thermometer probe can only go 5 in. deep, so it's likely hotter a little deeper in....

At the most shallow depth under there, it read a mere 85*.

This is a very open air coop with large areas of ventilation at all levels, even right next to this mass. Those stay open all night long too.

Will take readings when the temps drop to single digits and subzero and are sustained to see how much heat is generated if the mass goes dormant from the cold. Not likely to happen any time soon as we are experiencing spring like temps right now.

Peeked into a nest box from the outside access today and surprised a lady in there!

 

[PennyJo]

Didn't make much sense lol we have plenty of leaves

 

[Beekissed]

Jake, my old chicken dog, taking a well deserved rest in the gloaming.

 

[Beekissed]

Been in the 60s here the past few days and a little rainy. I let the flock into the garden to give them a chance at any bugs rising under the wood chips and leaves in this warm, damp weather....the garden now looks like it's been tilled!

They are finding a lot to eat out there this winter, as this has been the most mild winter in our memory here. They have had great foraging opportunities all winter, they have produced well for most of the winter now, after a really dry spell in the late fall, and feed consumption has been way down all winter.

I'll let the chickens work in there for a while longer and then close it off for a bit to give the bugs time to come back out of hiding, then I'll let them in again. That's good pest control for me, savings in feed, savings in money, really great eggs.

They've really loved this mild winter...must be what southern birds feel like every winter, huh?

 

[baymule]

Yes bee you now have southern chickens. But don't let @seedcorn know or he will be mean to your sweet little chickens. Bless his pore lil' pea pickin' huh-ART!!