We needed a new trough and wanted to make sure the cows wasnt afraid of the trap pen. Still more work to come, but wanted to share this video and hope it will help others and maybe someone can also give us future ideas. If you was looking from an aerial view the fences / pens would make like a T over the top of the trough. This gives us the ability to water 3 separate sets of animals. Makes watering livestock so much easier considering what ever you are raising can drink from a two foot tall trough. Now our job is so much easier with having a float on it. In the summer the cows would drink the trough down about half way. It would take about 30 minutes to fill that thing. Needless to say there has been more than once someone walked off to do something else and forgot about the water being on till........ Sometimes THE NEXT DAY!!! Anyways enjoy.
Planning and Installing our 700 gallon water trough.
- Thread starter MutzFarm
- Start date
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EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
Looks like a well thought out project. I know the feeling of waking up in the morning and seeing the lake next to the water trough. My wife just did that last week. Sadly, I can't get too mad since I've done it three times in the last year. Gotta wonder where my brain is some times!!!!
Thanx partner. I like for everything to be self doing where we can have time to do what needs to be done or nothing. Our hogs are on a 55 gallon drum with a hog nipple. Works excellent. Fixing to make a few more. Trying to figure out how to make something for all the farrowing pens. Used to have the chickens on a chicken nipple system. I think we are gonna move to the self watering bowl type deal though. Never ends.
Valveman
Platinum Member
They make a cheap timer you can put on a garden hose. Set it to run for an hour or three and it shuts off the hose for you. Sure beats making a lake when forgetting to turn off the hose.
That would of been a good idea, but now we have the float on it.
oosik
Epic Contributor
Helped my neighbor install two solar powered watering stations. Big oval tank - small 12V pump and supposedly VERY reliable float on/off system. The solar panel was about 2' x 3' and mounted about 10' up on the old windmill structure. As far as I know they still work pretty well. The old windmill pumping system required to much maintenance - hard to get parts - not that reliable.
Both watering stations are 10's of miles beyond commercial power.
Both watering stations are 10's of miles beyond commercial power.
Nice. This trough is almost out the back door. I am gonna set another one between to pastures, but havent decided if I want to pipe water to it or just put a tank on a stand to fill. This is because there is neighbors (2 different families) close to it. Not sure if they would try to steal water, but my thoughts is why put myself in that situation if I dont have to.
oosik
Epic Contributor
Another interesting part of the two watering stations. They were both hand dug - rock lined - wells. About 4 feet in diameter. Water level in both was about 16 feet down from the surface. Both were right at 24 feet deep. So I guess it means they must have been dug in the winter during the lowest water level.
Still - I can't imagine how cold it must have been. Twenty four feet down - standing in water - rocking the last few feet of the dug well. If these two wells were dug during the time of homesteading around here - it would have been the 1880's or early 1890's.
Still - I can't imagine how cold it must have been. Twenty four feet down - standing in water - rocking the last few feet of the dug well. If these two wells were dug during the time of homesteading around here - it would have been the 1880's or early 1890's.
Creamer
Elite Member
Why the galvanized steel tank? Where I grew up everybody is using used industrial tires on a concrete pad. Not susceptible to the cows leaning in, i.e. a permanent solution that does not cost much more. You can get various sizes but a 13' diameter and 2+ inch thick rubber wall will stand up to a lot of abuse. Of course you do not have freezing to worry about and maybe you do not have that many cattle that they start pushing each other around near the tank.
EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
We are now on our third location for our trough, and hopefully this is where it will stay. There is a lot of thought, and and also what the animals do, that goes into where to put it. My faucet to fill my trough is now in the wrong spot, so I'm going to dig down to the line, install a T, and then install another faucet over the trough so that when it's filling, it will make a lot of noise and you will see the water going from the spicket into the tank. For me, I think that will solve my forgetting to turn off the water issue. Since both my wife and I both suffer from this, it needs to be done.