Keeping Water tanks/buckets ice free without electricity

Our barn has no running water.  It has to be humped out to them if we've not got enough rainwater collected.  The goats are fairly fussy about not wanting to drink ice cold water.  Our mornings over the cold half of the year are typically one person standing at the sink, filling water from the hot tap into stockpots and another person filling 5 gallon buckets with those until we've got 70 gallons.  Twice a day.  In the coldest part of the year, the water begins to freeze fairly quickly.  

I try to get the goats to drink the water right away by making them an herbal tea, which is tasty and slightly sweet.  Or we might add molasses to the water.

What I'm really after is an inexpensive hack for keeping the water from freezing at all.  I want to avoid anything with cords.  

I saw something briefly somewhere about using old radiators and the sun, but that water would need to be pumped through, possibly kept flowing.  I do have a number of old radiators here.

Thanks heaps for your help!

How low of  temps do you get?

Well I'm in central Massachusetts.  The worst of winter gets well below zero F

John F Dean wrote:How low of  temps do you get?

I'm guessing you'd be averse to fire but maybe you could set up a system with water buckets sitting in a sturdy box (top open to the critters to drink from) that has some Sterno heaters or candles burning in it.

Can you run a hose down to the barn?  If it was trickling into a stock tank it shouldn't freeze, especially if the hose run was covered by something like hay or leaves.  The water would be cold but eventually they'd learn to love drinking it.  As opposed to dying...

Last winter (for laughs) I used the lid of my septic tank to melt snow into luke-cool water for my wife's houseplants.

Can you build a working composter using the nitrogen rich goat manure? That will generate heat. And perhaps insulate the bottom and sides so the heat is directed upwards, onto your water buckets?

We run a water hose buried out to our wildlife water tank which is about 100 feet.

I have read that hay bales can be place over the water lines to keep them from freezing.  

There is also a thread here on the forum by a guy in Maine who uses sheep manure.

Our daughter uses apple cider vinegar in her chickens water to keep it from freezing.

You can also float some ping pong balls to help keep the water moving around.

Float bottles of salt water.

Here are some threads that might offer more suggestions:

https://permies.com/t/19586/grid-livestock-water-freezing

https://permies.com/t/6307/Stock-water-freezing

The best idea of all time, make an RMH aka Rocket mass heater:

https://permies.com/t/29699/RMH-livestock-water-winter

https://permies.com/t/207958/Outdoor-Rocket-Mass-Heater-frozen

Hi Nissa,
I think I would be apt to just use a long hose. Unroll it, fill the tanks, and bring the hose back into a heated basement until the next day.

Long term, I think a buried pipe with a frost-free valve on the end would be very helpful to you.

I have also seen a device used for horses that did not use any electricity. It was hooked to an underground pipe of pressurized water. It had a float valve to keep it full. The device was super insulated and had a large plastic ball floating in the water. The ball was larger than the hole on top. When the water was high enough, the ball would float up and seal the opening and keep the water from freezing. The horses would push the ball down/sideways to drink, and when they moved their head, it would float back up and seal the hole again. Perhaps they have something like this for goat sized livestock. Though, you would need pressurized water for it.