water saving on farm

renandstimpy

Any farmers out there with any good tips for harvesting water from hay shed roof with lean off both sides for giving to cattle. ... the safety implications e.g salmonella ..... whats yere thoughts on it ... how are ye going to minimise water bills especially dairy farmers where I would imagine water consumption to be higher .

smokey-fitz

Could put a y piece on the downpipe with a valve and filter, fill a ibc or similar tank. Use up before filling again so water stays fresh? Tank up on a height so troughs are gravity fed.

_Brian

smokey-fitz wrote: »

Could put a y piece on the downpipe with a valve and filter, fill a ibc or similar tank. Use up before filling again so water stays fresh? Tank up on a height so troughs are gravity fed.

We have a 2000l tank feeding drinkers in slatted shed. Fitted with an overflow so water is constantly entering and leaving tank to keep fresh.

grazeaway

I assume you are using plastic downpipes and gutters and taking the water from roofs with sealed cladding. I would be very slow to feed water from the roofs to cattle IMO. You are washing what ever is on the roof into the drinking troughs and that includes bird sh1te and any build up that occurs on the roof, not to mention and possible metal poisoning that could get washed into the water too from rust.

If it were me I would use the roof water for washing down the place and for things for that. Not sure but I think there is a bord bia quality bit on the quality of the water used for animals.

You can get water filters that will kill off Bactria but I'm not sure on the cost. Potable water from good quality wells has been filtered through the ground so is ok to drink, rain water is what it says on the tin.

It would make sense to see what you are using water for and anything that doesn't need potable water could be easily swapped over to rain water.

renandstimpy

smokey-fitz wrote: »

Could put a y piece on the downpipe with a valve and f ilter, fill a ibc or similar tank. Use up before filling again so water stays fresh? Tank up on a height so troughs are gravity fed.

Was thinking of something like that .. wonder what height you would want ibc above troughs to get good flow from gravity .. and that cattle would not have to wait all day for a drink.

renandstimpy

grazeaway wrote: »

I assume you are using plastic downpipes and gutters and taking the water from roofs with sealed cladding. I would be very slow to feed water from the roofs to cattle IMO. You are washing what ever is on the roof into the drinking troughs and that includes bird sh1te and any build up that occurs on the roof, not to mention and possible metal poisoning that could get washed into the water too from rust.

If it were me I would use the roof water for washing down the place and for things for that. Not sure but I think there is a bord bia quality bit on the quality of the water used for animals.

You can get water filters that will kill off Bactria but I'm not sure on the cost. Potable water from good quality wells has been filtered through the ground so is ok to drink, rain water is what it says on the tin.

It would make sense to see what you are using water for and anything that doesn't need potable water could be easily swapped over to rain water.

I would be giving water to suckler cows and this years calves in one shed that it is 3 bay double . This has a galvanised & painted corrugated roof with metal gutters and downpipes .

the other 3 bay is new and has new type cladding and new metal gutters and downpipes so I guess maybe new roof would be ok , old roof I may have to think about .

Farmer

How does an IBC or one of the larger purpose made tanks hold up to a hard frost like we had a few years ago?

yellow50HX

renandstimpy wrote: »

I would be giving water to suckler cows and this years calves in one shed that it is 3 bay double . This has a galvanised & painted corrugated roof with metal gutters and downpipes .

the other 3 bay is new and has new type cladding and new metal gutters and downpipes so I guess maybe new roof would be ok , old roof I may have to think about .

I too would be wary giving drinking water to cattle out of metal roof and gutters, would you let cattle drink from a metal bucket that wasn't SS? A few years ago my neighbour decided to top up his fish pond with water off the roof, all the fish were dead within a few days.

If you we going that route I would have plastic gutters and DP on the new roof with a debris filter and UV system. But you would need a big roof and a lot of cattle to justify the cost.

Birdnuts

I plan on making a farm pond next year at the end of one of the drainage channels. It was always a wet spot in any case so at least now it will start paying its way.

_Brian

Farmer wrote: »

How does an IBC or one of the larger purpose made tanks hold up to a hard frost like we had a few years ago?

Ours is a seconds of a plastic oil tank and it's inside the shed to keep it frost free.

We do have an IBC at another point just for washing boots and buckets and it froze like a one ton ice cube during the bad frosts. Thawed out and no bother with splits or anything.

_Brian

grazeaway wrote: »

I assume you are using plastic downpipes and gutters and taking the water from roofs with sealed cladding. I would be very slow to feed water from the roofs to cattle IMO. You are washing what ever is on the roof into the drinking troughs and that includes bird sh1te and any build up that occurs on the roof, not to mention and possible metal poisoning that could get washed into the water too from rust.

If it were me I would use the roof water for washing down the place and for things for that. Not sure but I think there is a bord bia quality bit on the quality of the water used for animals.

You can get water filters that will kill off Bactria but I'm not sure on the cost. Potable water from good quality wells has been filtered through the ground so is ok to drink, rain water is what it says on the tin.

It would make sense to see what you are using water for and anything that doesn't need potable water could be easily swapped over to rain water.

We've been drinking weanlings and yearlings from collected water for More than ten years and seen no problems.
Remember that it's constantly flushing through the storage tank via the overflow so there is no build up of anything.
If there are bird droppings them it's so diluted and flushed through the system that it does no harm.

And stock were given drinks from galvanised buckets from rainwater collected in regular barrels for a long time. Stainless steel is a recent thing on farms.

smokey-fitz

_Brian wrote: »

We've been drinking weanlings and yearlings from collected water for More than ten years and seen no problems.
Remember that it's constantly flushing through the storage tank via the overflow so there is no build up of anything.
If there are bird droppings them it's so diluted and flushed through the system that it does no harm.

And stock were given drinks from galvanised buckets from rainwater collected in regular barrels for a long time. Stainless steel is a recent thing on farms.

Yea I agree, I have mostly old galvanised troughs in all the sheds, even a old non galvanised one.. all been there 20 to 30 years and never had a issue. Haven't had rain water going into any for a long time but when we did no issues either.. not saying any of the other comments not worth thinking about but I personally think contamination is minimal, especially if filtered.