Sheep water requirements

arctictree

Some neighbors around me are fanatical about providing water in every field. What do you lads do? I leave some buckets of water out but the ewes rarely touch it.

Cran

water in every field here, updated it last year with new pipes done by vibrating mole plough. How do the ewes survive in hot weather without water?

Username John

Some fields have piped water, some don't.

When lambs are small, and when the weather is hot, you'd be amazed how much water they'd use. (You never think they use that much til you have to draw it to them)

Birdnuts

In winter between rainfall and heavy dew on grass they'll get most of their requirements that way. In summer they'll need access to some sort of supply. If your feeding them sheep nuts their requirment for water will go up too

ganmo

If you have your sheep locked into a field with no water if an inspector spotted that you could be in hot water. But a bucket with a brick in the bottom of it to stop it blowing away when empty would keep him happy

Green farmer

How do the sheep roaming the mountains survive ?

ganmo

Green farmer wrote: »

How do the sheep roaming the mountains survive ?

Barely
They have a huge range with some ditches and puddles.
On our hill theres the start of a stream that they can get water out of

sea12

Green farmer wrote: »

How do the sheep roaming the mountains survive ?

They would have access to streams.

Most of my fields and paddocks have water supply now. Few that don't is z nuisance drawing water . It's my plan to have them all done for next spring .

Connemara Farmer

Green farmer wrote: »

How do the sheep roaming the mountains survive ?

Loads of water on the hills, streams, rivers, lakes, springs.

Most dangerous time is a dry Summer, sheep tend to wander out onto marshes, get stuck in the green stuff, tire, head down and drown.

Back to the question, I'm one of the water fanatics. Every division of the farm has water supplied to it IF there's none flowing in the drains. I had to provide water in September as my land is shallow, so dries quick and gets wet quick.

Each to their own but my conscience wouldn't allow me drive away from stock in a dry field.

razor8

Use a IBC connected to a drinker in spells of dry weather over the summer and last a long time, it's a cheap way of doing it for me

solerina

Water in every field, mostly piped but have troughs and plastic feeders with water in them too. Out the hill there is plenty of springs etc and they can walk to a nearby river from all parts of the hill. They drink quite a lot of water in dry weather