Need a better idea for portable waterer

[Richardin52]

I put water outlets spaced along my interior division fences and then move a water tank along with the cattle right now. I'm looking for a good skid or trailer setup or something better to move the tank. Don't want to reinvent the wheel so if someone has a setup that works well for a portable tank I would love to hear about it or see a pictures etc.

Thanks

 

[M5farm]

I will have to try and get a picture of one of my water trough's it is half of a big propane tank with legs on it. I just use the hay fork on the tractor to pick it up and set it in a new place. it could be fitted with skids and pulled I suppose.

 

[skyhightree1]

I am gonna leave my troughs in the same place right next to the hydrants im installing and the other pasture i use has automatic waterers.

 

[AllForage]

How many head are you running in a paddock?

I cut food grade 55 gallon barrels to about 2/3's and put a jobe valve in them. I dump them and carry them to the next paddock. Put them on the cross wire so you only have to move every 2 times. Besides the valve I have about 15 bucks in them.

I use these to water up to around 30 head of various ages.

 

[skyhightree1]

normally 10 per paddock for me which i only have 2 paddocks I will start rotational grazing on 2-150 gallon troughs in each one but only have 2 paddocks at home. The big pasture has 2 waterers at home and the rented pasture i have no cattle there yet but when I buy more I will probably use 4 150 troughs so I don't have to keep filling so often.

 

[gonzo]

I use regular 100 gln poly tannks and haul water to them in a tank on the back of my rino. works great :2cents: :banana:

 

[John SD]

Playing musical water tanks is one of my pet peeves. I'm glad all of my tanks are now permanent installations.

If you are looking for a small tank for portable use at multiple locations, probably won't get easier than a simple galvanized round tank. A 6' round tank holds about 400 gal and is easy for one person to move and relocate. 8' is not bad for 2 people.

Bad thing about galvanized tanks nowdays though they are so thin they are kinda disposable like a Dixie cup. Cattle can cave them in easily if the tank gets overloaded.

 

[skyhightree1]

Bad thing about galvanized tanks nowdays though they are so thin they are kinda disposable like a Dixie cup. Cattle can cave them in easily if the tank gets overloaded.

I can vouch for that.

 

[fargus]

We used an old running gear from under a bale wagon, shortened the reach up as much as we could, put two sleeper beams on the frame and mounted an old 500 gal fuel tank with a box float in the top. Took the core out of an old water heater, put it between the sleepers at the rear and ran a 1 1/2" pipe from the bottom of the 500 gal tank into the water heater tank with a high-flow valve. Strapped that down, and covered the work hole on the water heater tank with roofing steal so the cattle can't get at the float mechanism. Cut a hole in the top of the water heater tank for the cattle to drink out of. Still had room in front of the 500 gal tank to cut a plastic barrel in half, lag it to the sleepers and use it for salt and mineral. Pretty slick, I can hook on with a loader tractor or pickup truck, use quick connect couplers on the water lines and the garden hose so it's fast to move around.



Not a great picture, but you can see the ugly thing in the corner. Kept up to 100 yearlings no problem, and heavy enough that they couldn't really push it around. Likely going to build another one this summer. I'll try and remember to get some better pictures this week. It was pretty cheap to build, mostly recycled materials from around the shop. Had to spend about $100 on plumbing and floats.

 

[3MR]

If I had to move water tanks or even haul water to refill them I would go crazy. All my pastures that dont have some kind of pond or other water source have one or two 6' round galvanized tanks with automatic shutoffs. If they werent connected to a water line they would be emptied three or four times a day in the summer.

I have never had a problem with catle destroying galvanized tanks. I have been using the same ones for well over a decade now.

 

[greybeard]

Off topic a little, but my cattle will NOT drink from a galvanize tank. They'll come up, sniff of it, then go straight to the cement tank or over to the pond--a 100 yard stroll for them. I've dumped it, washed it out, refilled it from my well. Same water that's in the concrete tank, but they won't touch the water in the gal tank. I think it is a Behlen tank.

 

[Banjo]

The easiest for me is to create permanent lanes to a pond or waterer and shade. I don't have shade in every paddock so they need to be able to go to shade.

 

[purecountry]

I've used old bathtubs bolted together end to end for smaller bunches. You can't hurt them. Also make good mineral troughs.

For my custom grazing operation with 400+ yearlings I used 2 600 gallon round plastic troughs. Just timed my daily pasture rotations when the water was drank down low, tipped them over on their side, rolled them ahead 100' to the next paddock. The water truck was parked outside the fence so I just drove it ahead as well and filled the tanks. In a strip-grazing/mob-grazing scenario giving them 5-10 acres per day it worked fine. Plenty of exercise, but I liked that part of it.

 

[greybeard]

Pretty scenery you have there PC. Lots better than the snow covered landscape we envision for Canada, but spring is here I guess. I use some old bath tubs to feed in too sometimes.

 

[purecountry]

This was from last June. I wish it looked that green already this spring. We had more snow this winter than I have ever seen and it just left a couple of weeks ago.