water trough

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tncattle

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What do y'all put down under and/or around where your water trough is to keep from getting so muddy? I know the concrete alternative but am looking for others.
 
we tried just about everything-- concrete is the only long term solution
 
I've got one of them that went in on a rocky caliche bed in about '87. Don't exactly remember the year. That whole area is now a muddy mess. 23? years of cattle poop, residual water out of the trough, and grass taking off seems to have created somewhere around 4 inches of top soil that turns into murky messes such as the one I am seeing now. There is layer upon layer of limestone underneath, but you'd never know it in a picture.
 
We put doen about 6 inches of 2 inch rock and cover it with clay. Every 5 years or so we add more. Having it slope away from the water tank helps because the liquids don;t seem to collect a much
 
We generally grade up a mound where the tank will set. The pad should extend at least 10-12 ft to all sides of the tank. We then put down geo-textile fabric to cover the mound and then set the tank. We use 6-8" of mixed rock to cover the geo-t. here in ID it is just river rock we scrape up from the desert. In Missouri we could get lime screenings so we could get by with 4 inches of 2" base rock and then cover than with 2" of screenngs. That would set up almost as hard as concrete.

For us the geo-t and rock is less than half the cost of a concrete apron.
 

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