No-Ice Bucket Challenge

What can I say, I'm a lazy farmer. Waking up every morning before work and breaking waters isn't my idea of a great wake-up call. Soo... whats a lazy farmer to do?

I introduce to you, the Winter No-Ice Bucket Challenge:

I started with elevating the water trough about 8" or so

the using split rails (the ones torn down from the old fence- recycling!) to make a box around the trough. I layed out the hose through the box ending at a floating auto waterer in the pasture.

Fill the box with hay and compost, and double layer the water bucket with a layer of hay/compost in a larger bucket for insulation. As winter wears on, the heat from the hay decomposing will keep the water nice and not frozen. And since the water drains from the bottom of the big barrel, so long as the trough doesn't freeze solid we should be good!

In the barn I also did the double layer insulated waterers to hopefully keep the stall waters non-iced. Hope they work!