December of 2010, the year after we arrived in middle Tennessee, was the coldest in recorded history since the early 1940s. We had just limped through eight days of below freezing temperatures. It got so low the first night that the pond totally froze. I kept trying to break up the ice along the edges so the horses could get to water (the remnants seen on the gravel in the photo below) but it soon reached the point where it was re-freezing before I could get back into the house. So finally – remembering well Mariah’s fall through the ice the winter before when I had to close off the entire pasture and started filling water tubs down at the barn.
But I also remembered the freeze-proof faucet at the barn freezing our first year here, and me hauling jugs of water from the house several times a day, and the gator breaking down so the jugs had to be hauled by hand, and the enormous electric bills caused by the resistance-heating coil in the tub water heater, not to mention how difficult it was to set it all up in such a way that Mouse could neither eat it it or destroy it :). All of that got the ol’ brain working. There must be a way to keep the pond both available and safe.
Then I remembered something someone told me in a comment on the blog. They use a submersible pump in their water tubs and it keeps the tubs from freezing. Moving water is much harder to freeze. And the pump uses much less electricity than a tub heater. Hmmm. I wondered if a pump would work in the pond. Especially if I put it very near the edge of the pond where the horses drink. By this time anything was worth a try. It wasn’t even officially winter yet and already we were setting cold temperature records. It could be a long winter.
So off to Lowes I went and came home with a $70 submersible pond pump. The kind you might use to make or drive a fountain or a waterfall. I placed it on a concrete block about eight feet from the edge of the pond with the output pointing straight up, covered the power cord with rocks (the ground was already too frozen to dig a trench), ran an extension cord down from the house… and voila, the photo you see below.
But would the horses drink? Would the fountain effect scare them? Especially Noelle, the mustang. And Mariah, who had icy memories from the previous year. I decided to leave the pasture closed for the night and see how the little pump fared. It was predicted to drop into the teens. The next morning there was still a beautiful pool in the pond so I opened all the pasture gates during the morning feed. Shortly thereafter I snapped the photo below.
Cash was drinking away. Pocket and Skeeter were not far behind him. No one seemed very worried about the bubbling fountain. Pocket studied it but not for long. The ice on the gravel and the bubbling water did bother Mariah and she turned away several times before finally drinking. Then came the snow.
The next four or five days never got above the mid twenties. The drinking “pool” got smaller but never froze away. I did break up the ice around edge a few times but it was always thin enough for the weight of a horse to easily break it. One night the temperature dropped to 9 degrees. The next morning I was out of bed the minute it was light to check the pond. This first photo (at the top) was snapped from the upstairs bedroom window.
There was a 12″ frozen “shelf ” at the pond’s edge but Cash (who doesn’t like to get his feet wet) would rather reach across than step on the ice. When big ol’ Skeeter came down he just stomped on the shelf and it crumbled. After feeding, I broke up all the ice along the edge of the pond.
Conclusions: The winter of 2010 continued to set record temperatures and snow accumulations and the winter of 2013-14 was even worse with nights of below zero temperatures. But that great little pump persisted and never once did the horses not have their little pool to drink from. When it got cold enough long enough to cause serious edge freezing I moved the pump closer to the shoreline and that was all it took. I also planned to dig the bottom deeper along the shoreline because one of the reasons it was freezing is that it’s only inches deep right at the edge so the water movement has less effect. If worse had come to worse I might’ve even acquired a second pump. This seems to be a solution that will work for anyone, at least anyone in the mid-latitudes of the U.S. In either a pond or tub. I have no idea what would happen waaay up at the top of the country, or in Canada. Perhaps a bigger, more powerful pump might be needed. If anyone up there tries it I’d love to hear about the results.
Suffice to say the pump is back in the pond and ready for whatever the winter of 2014-15 might bring. One additional piece of advice: don’t leave that little devil in the pond if you turn it off in the Spring. I did that the first year year. I had to virtually take it apart to get it clean and operating again in the fall. Things do grow during the Spring and Summer in Tennessee :)
—–
The story of our journey with horses (to date) is told in the two books that follow: the national best seller The Soul of a Horse – Life Lessons from the Herd and its sequel Born Wild – The Soul of a Horse.
And what a story it is as two novices without a clue stumble and bumble their way through the learning process so that hopefully you won’t have to. If you haven’t read both of these books already please do because with that reading, I believe, will come not just the knowledge of discovery but the passion and the excitement to cause you to commit to your journey with horses, to do for the horse without waiver so that your relationship and experience will be with loving, happy and healthy horses who are willing partners and who never stop trying for you. Horses like ours.
The highly acclaimed best selling sequel to the National Best Seller
The Soul of a Horse – Life Lessons from the Herd
#1 Amazon Best Seller
#1 Amazon “Hot New Releases”
Amazon & Kindle
B&N and Nook
Apple iBooks
Google play
Order Personally Inscribed Copies of Born Wild – $15
Order Both The Soul of a Horse & Born Wild – Save 20%
Both Personally Inscribed – $24
Please list the names for each inscription in the “instructions to Seller” field as you check out!
Read More About Born Wild
Read More About The Soul of a Horse
Watch The Soul of a Horse Trailer
Watch the Born Wild Trailer
But first read the National Best Seller that started it all
Now in it’s 13th printing:
Keeping a pump in the pond year round also aerates the water keeping algae, (mosquito) larvae, and bacteria at bay.
LNorman… agreed. Ours stays in year round.
I’ll let you know how that might work in the U.P. , a pump will probably be a lot cheaper to run than a heater , and that matters . We only have one horse , so one tub . I’ll set that up before the freeze and I’ll keep you informed . By the way , … you do good work .
Thanks Brian.