Do you have to draw water to livestock?

Muckit

I'm lucky enough to have a well on the main farm and l'm on GWS for another bit. But it wasn't always that way and l often drew water in barrels on a transport box.

I still see a few neighbours at it, but some with ibcs now.

Are there many on here that still have to do it?

_Brian

No thank god.
It’s allot of extra work for no gain at all.

ganmo

mostly gravity fed from streams.
I'd like to sink a well on the out farm so we're not relying on the one stream that goes dry for supplying some of the fields

Muckit

_Brian wrote: »

No thank god.
It’s allot of extra work for no gain at all.

Well l suppose the gain is the animals stay alive!:D

DaDerv

Muckit wrote: »

I'm lucky enough to have a well on the main farm and l'm on GWS for another bit. But it wasn't always that way and l often drew water in barrels on a transport box.

I still see a few neighbours at it, but some with ibcs now.

Are there many on here that still have to do it?

Had been doing it here for as long as I can remember. Filling blue barrels, IBC tanks, old containers, anything that wouldn't leak and drawing it to different parts of the farm. Had an old 1 inch Loncin pump that did for a few years and upgraded to a Honda 2 inch last year. It was a nightmare. One side of the road has a river but with REPS and GLAS and whatever else follows I've lost access to this. Auld fella bored a well but the most you'd get from it in the summer was 200 gallons and it would need to replenish for a day to go again. Not great for thirsty cows in the summer.

This year I whipped the pump out of the well and put it in the river. Put in 14, 70 gallon concrete water troughs and 2.5km of MDPE pipe both sides of the road and only for it I would have been screwed with the way the summer came. Paddock grazing has done wonders for the amount of grass I have now as well. My brother still draws water for his place. Hes invested in the troughs but hasn't gotten around to installing yet.

Dakota Dan

ganmo wrote: »

mostly gravity fed from streams.
I'd like to sink a well on the out farm so we're not relying on the one stream that goes dry for supplying some of the fields

How do you gravity feed from a stream? I used to draw water to an outside farm years ago using a steel oil tank on a dung spreader with a gravity fed water trough.

_Brian

Muckit wrote: »

Well l suppose the gain is the animals stay alive!:D

Indeed. 🙄

ganmo

Dakota Dan wrote: »

How do you gravity feed from a stream? I used to draw water to an outside farm years ago using a steel oil tank on a dung spreader with a gravity fed water trough.

Get the water flowing in the pipe and stick it under the water and it’ll keep sucking.

croot

Dakota Dan wrote: »

How do you gravity feed from a stream? I used to draw water to an outside farm years ago using a steel oil tank on a dung spreader with a gravity fed water trough.

If you have enough of a fall its easy enough. Get a funnel or wide pipe and attach it to 1/2 inch hydrodare



Drop it into the stream and build a bit of a dam around it above the level the drinker is at



And then you should get gravity fed water. It keep flowing all the time so it will leave around the drinker wet if you dont have an overflow outlet



As you can see by the ground in the last pic this was at the height of the drought so the water was a bit dirty. I had it filling into a bucket with a filter before it got to the drinker to clean the water a bit. It saved my ass this summer.

A cow called Daisy

But as Stan Laurel once said

"You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead (led)":D:D

Remember that as being very funny, still is years later.

Another I will never forget was when telling someone about a death, they asked
'What did the die of?', to which Stan Laurel says, 'He died of a Thursday':D

Pod123

Didn’t see a neighbour for a while so kept an eye on his cattle for the past fortnight. Always passed same time every day but I thought maybe I was not seeing him as he might be coming a different time. Today saw him pass with his water tank strolled him to meet him. He got a very slight stroke and out off action for awhile but all well now.he does a seven mile trip drawing water said that’s what keeps him going. Offered him a tap here no he said that he would never leave his house then.

patsy_mccabe

A cow called Daisy wrote: »

....... Another I will never forget was when telling someone about a death, they asked
'What did the die of?', to which Stan Laurel says, 'He died of a Thursday':D

Spike Milligan, when asked what his new book was about, he said "about 500 pages".

whelan2

Neighbour draws water to some cattle with a slurry tanker and to others with a transport box and milk churns. Must be a total pain

Danzy

Muckit wrote: »

Well l suppose the gain is the animals stay alive!:D

A contentious post but the Mods should let it stand.😉

SmartinMartin

croot wrote: »

It saved my ass this summer.

All that work just to water one ass.

Cavanjack

Life is too short for that craic. Used to be rooting here on a dry summer when we were young and idle. If it was taking an hour a week it'd be too long. Have everything piped to drinkers from two wells here. Would have been bother this year. Streams are totally dried up here now.

Muckit

Some lads may not have a choice. If you have a field that is away from main farm and has no GWS running by it, what option do u have?

Cavanjack

Muckit wrote: »

Some lads may not have a choice. If you have a field that is away from main farm and has no GWS running by it, what option do u have?

I'd try and do a deal with a neighbouring farmer if he had piped water or if a couple of neighbours were in the same "boat" it would be worth looking into sinking a well and getting a power supply between a few lads. Wouldn't like to have been drawing water this summer in the height of the heat. But You are right of course, one could run out of options.

Wessel3

currently draw in ibcs , nothing else i can do