Beet juice to keep chickens water from freezing!

A few weeks ago I saw something on tick tock that did not sounded interesting to me. Somebody was claiming that if you put a little bit of beet juice in your chicken's waterer, that it wouldn't freeze in winter! Now I found this pretty hard to believe and actually reached out to ask questions but never got any answers. 

So I decided to experiment on this myself.

For the last few weeks I have been adding beet juice to all my non-heated font waterers just to see if it would actually keep the water from freezing. It didn't. 

But then I started thinking about that saltwater thing people did about 8 years back. It didn't really work to keep water from freezing, but it did help it to take a little longer to freeze for some people. 

So I decided to do an experiment using 2 bottles of plain water. One I left alone and the other I removed 1Tbs of water and replaced it with 1 Tbs of beet juice. I placed them outside on a day that was between 15° F and 20° F. 

If it's colder or warmer when you use this obviously your solution will freeze faster or more slowly, so take that into account. I did this experiment to figure out precise expectations because this would be great to use in chicks water bottles because they do not have heaters available. 

You can buy large heated waterers for adult chickens, but many of these are either tall, deep or large and just not safe for chicks. I decided to use water bottles because they are closer to the size of chick drinkers.

Keeping chicken coop water from freezing

Now these results were interesting! Don't worry, I took pictures the whole time as I knew I wanted proof of if it worked or not. In fact I took pictures every couple of hours and I was shocked that when the all water bottle was frozen solid the one with the beet juice was still partially liquid. 

In fact, at the end I decided to pour it into a glass to see how much wasn't frozen and ended up spilling it everywhere because I had no idea that much was liquid in there and it quickly filled up the glass and overflowed because the bottle was in there. You'll see in the picture! 

Does beet juice keep water from freezing?

You can click that picture to enlarge it! Yes, I started bringing them in for pictures because it gets dark at 4:30 right now and I started this at 2pm!

So as you can see, a tablespoon of beet juice in a bottle of water actually keeps it liquid longer. However, it feels like the beet juice separates out from the water and the water freezes so as it gets more frozen they're drinking a higher concentration of beet juice. 

This isn't necessarily a bad thing as beet juice has a few vitamins and minerals in it. Now keep in mind the % listed on the label for vitamins is for a human being drinking an 8oz glass and not a tiny chicken drinking some of 1 tbs of beet juice. 

It likely ends up being similar though considering the size difference. If somebody does the math on that I'd love to see it, but as all the vitamins listed are water soluble, it won't hurt the chickens even if they are a little high...but they're probably not!

Related Reading: Keeping chickens water bowls from freezing in winter!

Nutrition label of beet juice 

While this does appear to work, there's one more thing you need to remember, that doesn't mean your chicks are going to have water for 12 hours! Because unfortunately the way chick drinkers are made what's in the reservoir might still freeze since it's not very deep. 

Also, the hole in which the water exits the drinker could freeze shut leaving your chicks without water. 

Water freezes from the air temperature inward on the container so the outsides are going to freeze first and that little hole that the water comes out of might freeze. If you decide to use this method please check it every few hours to make sure the water is still getting into the tray they drink out of. 

All in all this is the best trick I've seen so far. I've had the most success with it and I didn't have any success with the saltwater one at all. Everything froze other than the bottle of salt water! It just started freezing from the outside in just like the beet juice but since it was pure water it froze easily and the unfrozen saltwater bottle was sticking out of the middle. 

By adding the beet juice it mixes with the water and it's through the whole thing so it makes the whole thing freeze more slowly. Even though it still freezes inwards, it does take longer. 

However, be aware that it will still freeze solid given enough time and cold enough temperatures! Remember this was done on a 15° F and 20° F. Try it on a -15° F and it won't work nearly as long unfortunately, 

Thankfully we have very few days that cold! This is a pretty good example of how a chick drinker freezes.

Since this is something new, I'd love if you give it a try and let me know down in comments how it works for you!

Oh and just in case you're wondering how in the world someone figured this out....there is a new ice melter made with beets! It only makes sense that if beets can melt ice, they can keep water from freezing longer! 

Plus a beet based ice melter are going to be better for both animals who walk through it and vegetation. I can use this near my chickens! I love this idea don't you? 

Want to know how I keep the rest of my flocks water from freezing? Check out: Keeping chickens water safe in serious winter weather, including power outages!!

~L

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