Protecting a waterer from pushy cows?

[sunnyblueskies]

Not that I've ever seen. It's a mix of heated drinkers and heated stock tanks for the most part. I frequently use the old axe on the pond for water as the cows are often quite a distance from any sort of well or power.

I have an excavator now so I'm going to attempt to bury some big culverts and setup a few waterers like Silver has at some point.

Oh I envy you for the excavator!!!! The things one could do!!

 

[RDFF]

Can't use tire waterers. Winter is too cold here to keep that from freezing.

Tire waterers don't really work in the cold...

I thought someone on here had a concrete tank (or normal size tank) based off of a geothermal system. It was pretty slick. Maybe it was @Silver ?

Tire tank waterers work ALL WINTER LONG without freezing over. Continuous flow, geothermally heated. Check out my installations at:

Reviving a vintage watering system / field drain

CattleToday: Feeding Hay

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

They can work-ish if you have an abundant supply of water to let it overflow and have someplace for the water to go.

 

[sunnyblueskies]

Tire tank waterers work ALL WINTER LONG without freezing over. Continuous flow, geothermally heated. Check out my installations at:

Reviving a vintage watering system / field drain

CattleToday: Feeding Hay

What's your coldest cold in your Winter?

 

[sunnyblueskies]

They can work-ish if you have an abundant supply of water to let it overflow and have someplace for the water to go.

It's well water, so it's not abundant to let it keep running. A gushing creek would be nice. =)

 

[4hfarms]

It is a blessing.....

 

[RDFF]

What's your coldest cold in your Winter?

-40°F. Not "normal" to get there though, but I've had them stay open when we did. "Typical" on the coldest days of our winters is about -25°F, plus the wind chill. My tire tanks are fully exposed to the NW wind, only a clean 3 wire fence to protect them. If you use that needle valve, you just need to open it "as much as you need", depending on how cold it'll get. If you read through that CattleToday: Feeding Hay thread, you'll see another post about a "Thermal Sweep"... here's a link to that device (Micro-Sweeper Ice Preventer, $90... so alot more costly than that $15 needle valve), and it "MIGHT" (don't know, cause I don't have one) let more water through than is necessary, although from the description, it sounds like it MAY open more as the temp of the surrounding water gets colder, and close more as the water approaches 42°???? I'd have to check that out with the manufacturer to know for sure. If it is either "open or closed"..., the flow rate on the medium unit states .063 to 30 gallons/hour... that's a wide variance... so is that because of how the unit functions (as I just described), or is that variance dependent upon pressure and available flow from the supply line? Don't know...


This image would seem to indicate to me that the water actually comes out of that little pinhole on the part mounted on the side... so it would SEEM that the amount of water would be quite limited anyway, by that hole size... SO... I assume the thermostatically controlled valve is either "fully open" or "fully closed", for the most part... and the variability in the rated "flow rate" then likely comes more from how much pressure is available from the supply line (the smaller the outlet size, the more that available pressure will affect the flow rate through it, so a "gravity fed system with minimal pressure would flow very little, 60 PSI would flow far more, so those numbers would seem to make sense). Now, I MAY open my needle valve as much as this pinhole allows anyway... I just open it as much as I've found necessary to keep the tank open through the winter, and forget it till spring. And in THAT case, this device might SAVE significantly more water over the needle valve, and then it would likely pay for itself over time. That's the way that I would think it would probably work at least.

 

[RDFF]

It's well water, so it's not abundant to let it keep running. A gushing creek would be nice. =)

I've got a creek, but the cattle do too much damage to the banks and creekbed... prefer the waterers. Nice to have that creek as an option though!

 

[RDFF]

They can work-ish if you have an abundant supply of water to let it overflow and have someplace for the water to go.

Doesn't take much water "leaking" into the tank to keep it open, WELL below 0°F. 1/8" needle valve barely opened up... but that gives you the control to regulate how much "continuous flow" you allow to flow in, depending on the temp you'll experience. Down south, where you'll hardly ever see 0°, you'd hardly even need continuous flow, if you've got a fair number of animals drinking on it... but it's so cheap to install that protection, why wouldn't you, just to make it easy on yourself? And if you don't want to install the overflow drain system and run it down to a ditch or well away from the waterer, I've got a couple on fencelines where I just dug a little trench where the cattle AREN'T able to have access, and let it run over. No problem at all.

I built a "water line plow", very similar to the field tile plows only smaller scale, out of an old one shank subsoiler, goes on the 3 pt. I use it to shallow bury waterlines (and to install underground fencer jumper wires across gates and headlands, etc... I put those inside a 1/2" cheap irrigation hose so I can always pull in a new jumper wire if necessary, have plowed in communications lines and underground electric service lines too), and I also have used it to plow in an overflow drain line away and down the hill from my tire tank... just to get any overflow away from where the cattle will congregate around the waterer. Long as you're going downhill, it'll drain. I generally use like 1 1/4" black poly for this drain line. That'll carry away any amount of overflow you'll ever have, INCLUDING like even if the cattle were to break your main fill valve and it's running FULL FLOW (I've had it happen... calves getting into the tank). THAT of course WILL demand quite a bit of water from your system.

Chevy, apparently either you're not talking from personal experience, or you didn't install or operate the continuous flow correctly.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

I am, at -30 it requires quite a bit of flow expecially when the cows don't come drink for 3-5 days.

My well doesn't like that. And the overflow turns into an ice rink.

You mention "downhill" multiple times. Many places here I would have to pipe the overflow 1/8 of a mile with basically zero fall before I got to a "downhill".

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

It's another one of those it works for some people in some operations in some geographical locations.

And here isn't one of those. Lol

 

[RDFF]

I am, at -30 it requires quite a bit of flow expecially when the cows don't come drink for 3-5 days.

My well doesn't like that. And the overflow turns into an ice rink.

You mention "downhill" multiple times. Many places here I would have to pipe the overflow 1/8 of a mile with basically zero fall before I got to a "downhill".

Well, I guess I'll have to agree with you if you're livin' on an old dried up lake bed. Hard to imagine land that doesn't have any slope, having grown up in the bluffs along the Mississippi! I've moved about 80 miles north of there to where I am now, and it's "mostly flat farm ground", but still, everything around here for the most part will have a 1-2% slope to it. My farm just happens to be one where the slope is generally considerably more than that... 3-5% or more. So it's not hard for me to get the fall I need.

We don't normally see temps SUSTAINED below -20°F, but we will get lows down into the -30°F overnight usually once or twice a season. And I've never had a problem with the tire tanks at those temps. Had -40°F one night, and it still stayed open... although I did have over 200 head drinking from them then too.

In the end, I guess you're right, what works for some, won't necessarily work for others.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

I just cleared a 3000' fenceline and it had .04% slope.

You also have frozen ground and noplace for cows to drink.

I have deep snow that keeps the ground thawed so even this morning at -13° there was water in the tractor tracks from feeding. Cows drink that instead of walking 1/2 mile home.

 

[RDFF]

I just cleared a 3000' fenceline and it had .04% slope.

You also have frozen ground and noplace for cows to drink.

I have deep snow that keeps the ground thawed so even this morning at -13° there was water in the tractor tracks from feeding. Cows drink that instead of walking 1/2 mile home.

C O N T E X T !! Learn something new every day!

 

[RDFF]

I just cleared a 3000' fenceline and it had .04% slope.

You also have frozen ground and noplace for cows to drink.

I have deep snow that keeps the ground thawed so even this morning at -13° there was water in the tractor tracks from feeding. Cows drink that instead of walking 1/2 mile home.

You talking centigrade or fahrenheit? Being in Michigan, I'd think you're referring to fahrenheit. Hard to believe that if water is standing in your tractor tracks at -13°F outside, that it'd be liquid for very long. I DO understand that your snow is deep enough though to not let the ground freeze underneath... which of course would result in "water" as the snow melts from the warm soil... and with your non-slope, it would have nowhere to go... essentially slushy slop on the surface. So if you've just fed them, I could see how there would be "water" in the tracks until the now exposed water froze. And if that's the case, they'd be getting "watered" automatically once a day when you feed them. Not a bad system either. You'd have to be careful about pawing down into that muddy soil though! I'd think that compaction would have to be a bit of a concern then too... and tearing up the sod with your feeding tractor.

 

[chevytaHOE5674]

Yep it starts to freeze as soon as it's exposed often it starts steaming. But the cows have learned to come start drinking immediately. Then they will often drink from one spot on and off the rest of the day.

 

[artesianspringsfarm]

UP here if it doesn't have a heater or self drain then you will get real familiar with an axe come winter.

This is a fun thread to read and think about all the ways to skin the "watering in a cold climate" cat. I will show yet one more solution, but there are very few people it will work for. We have artesian springs on the farm (hence the name). At least 100 years ago, the dairy farmers here before my grandfather put a hunk of culvert where one of those springs is and then started running line from there. We now have over 3/4 mile of pipe run all over the farm from this little dug well fed by a spring. There's never more than 30 gallons in that well but its always flowing at full pressure (I think about 20 PSI) even at the end coming out of a 3/4" pipe. We have slowly perfected a system in rubbermaid tanks that allows us to run pretty much as many waterers as we want. They all look something like this:


This was a below zero day, of which we get plenty in an average winter. With all our fittings inside and this vertical outlet to create a swirl at the top, we have enough disturbance, even with quite low flow, that nothing ices over any more than what you see in this picture. Even as I explain I'm reminded of how much we take this water for granted!

 

[RDFF]

This is a fun thread to read and think about all the ways to skin the "watering in a cold climate" cat. I will show yet one more solution, but there are very few people it will work for. We have artesian springs on the farm (hence the name). At least 100 years ago, the dairy farmers here before my grandfather put a hunk of culvert where one of those springs is and then started running line from there. We now have over 3/4 mile of pipe run all over the farm from this little dug well fed by a spring. There's never more than 30 gallons in that well but its always flowing at full pressure (I think about 20 PSI) even at the end coming out of a 3/4" pipe. We have slowly perfected a system in rubbermaid tanks that allows us to run pretty much as many waterers as we want. They all look something like this:

View attachment 53215
This was a below zero day, of which we get plenty in an average winter. With all our fittings inside and this vertical outlet to create a swirl at the top, we have enough disturbance, even with quite low flow, that nothing ices over any more than what you see in this picture. Even as I explain I'm reminded of how much we take this water for granted!

Same concept as a pressure line continuous flow system... geo-thermally heated by the incoming underground feeder line. Main difference on the overflow from what I normally prefer is the above ground exit... I dump mine into field tile whenever possible. Great set-up for you though... no electricity to deal with, and it is TRULY "continuous flow", whereas I have to be concerned about pump/power failure! I could do something like this at the headwaters of my creek, but it's too far down in the valley to do me much good... (most of my land is at higher elevation than the high point of the creek). I've done elevation evaluation, and I "could" capture field tile water at one point and still plumb water to the other end of the farm and reach much of it... but that tile doesn't always run, so I'd still have to rely on pressure line... simpler to just work with that to start with.

I also prefer the durability and capacity of excavator tires to the rubber tanks, for the numbers I'm running.