Reply #4: I hope this winter goes easy on you this year and you figure out a workable

[Dover]

solution for the water trough. I'm sure just insulating a tank would help, and reducing the amount of water surface exposed to the weather.

You might also consider insulating and burying both the tank (partially in the ground) and the hose like a water line out to the tank. Of course if you were to go that far it's probably not much more to just run a regular water line instead of a hose. Seems like it would be nice to work out some way to do it passively rather than relying on electricity.

Feeling creative? A few more intersting ideas to consider:

There's a lot of info about this online -
PARABOLIC TROUGH REFLECTOR SOLAR WATER HEATER GREEN POWER
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXXOwfZA2Rk

http://www.youtube.com/user/GREENPOWERSCIENCE

Written instructions on making one:

http://power-shift.org/parabolic-trough-reflector-solar-water-heater-green-power
https://www1.eere.energy.gov/femp/pdfs/FTA_para_trough.pdf


All about solar water heating heatinghttp://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/WaterHeating/water_heating.htm


Horse forum discussion on freezing troughs:
http://www.horsegroomingsupplies.com/horse-chat-forum/get_topic/3/001005.html