heated water for horses

[Beverly540@aol.com]

Hello friends:           
       Someone on ridecamp recently asked how to keep horse's drinking water
from freezing in the trough during the cold winter months.   There are  lots
of gadgets on the market....but we found a really easy way to warm our horse's
drinking water that doesn't involve any fancy  gadgets. This system will only
work if your  pasture is near your water heater and probably will only work if
you are watering just a few horses. Our pasture is right outside our back door
and we only have four horses.
           We get water to the trough from a hose connected to an outside
water spicket at the back of our house. The water runs slowly and continuously
to the trough. We asked a plumber to hook up our hot water to the outside
water spicket.
In the winter time we keep the hot water just barely on so that we are running
barely warm water to the trough. The water that comes out is not  warm to the
touch, but it's certainly not freezing!  You can make it as warm as you want.
In the summer we turn the warm water completely off. Hope this might help
someone! 
        Electricity is fairly cheap in Virginia -- our monthly bill is seldom
over $100. Course, there's no one home during the day (except horses). 
Happy trails,
Beverly and Flower
Blue Ridge Mts. of SWVA