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Water Bowl troubles

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randiliana

randiliana

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Oooooooohhhhh, are all cows this dumb :???: ? We have about 50 pair here at home. They have to water out of water bowls, but there is no shortage of water. We have watered twice as many cows out of these bowls before with no trouble but this year, they all have to come in at the same TIME! So we have 50 head fighting for water. They have wrecked 1 bowl, parts on another, a float hooked up to a TROUGH, and they broke a HINGE on a gate!! It doesn't seem to matter what the temperature is, hot or cold they all come at the same time. I'm about ready to shoot the whole works. Plus we are planning on going for a holiday for 10 days and how can we do that if they are wrecking stuff? My mom just isn't THAT into cows, I will be lucky to have her take care of my chickens. Well, if nothing else I feel a bit better now :wink: .

Randi
My Website
www.geocities.com/randiliana2000
My Favorite Canadian Gardening group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CdnRRandSeedexch/
My Favorite Canadian Ranching Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/canadianfoodanimals
 
randiliana said:
Oooooooohhhhh, are all cows this dumb :???: ? We have about 50 pair here at home. They have to water out of water bowls, but there is no shortage of water. We have watered twice as many cows out of these bowls before with no trouble but this year, they all have to come in at the same TIME! So we have 50 head fighting for water. They have wrecked 1 bowl, parts on another, a float hooked up to a TROUGH, and they broke a HINGE on a gate!! It doesn't seem to matter what the temperature is, hot or cold they all come at the same time. I'm about ready to shoot the whole works. Plus we are planning on going for a holiday for 10 days and how can we do that if they are wrecking stuff? My mom just isn't THAT into cows, I will be lucky to have her take care of my chickens. Well, if nothing else I feel a bit better now :wink: .

Randi


The only way to solve this is that the water tanks have to large enough

to accomadate all the cattle to drink at once-large round tanks-water bowls are designed to accomadate 1-2 animals at a time.







My Website
www.geocities.com/randiliana2000
My Favorite Canadian Gardening group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CdnRRandSeedexch/
My Favorite Canadian Ranching Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/canadianfoodanimals
Click to expand...
 
Randi.....we use large industrial earth mover tires for troughs-either pour cement or buy plastic inserts to cover the bottom rim.....lots of storage,can't be smashed and should last dam near forever! We use one for winter use even....it does recquire either a lid or power for a stock tank heater to remain open in severe cold. They are cheaper than almost any bowl you can buy also. We have had problems finding suitable valves and float assemblies (see my post on stock water valves-ranch talk) but I'm sure we can find something reliable. We are watering over 350 cows out of one in the winter and would not willingly go back to a waterbowl! As for the valves they aren"t too bad a problem as long as you can check them daily.....Good luck!
 
cowsense said:
Randi.....we use large industrial earth mover tires for troughs-either pour cement or buy plastic inserts to cover the bottom rim.....lots of storage,can't be smashed and should last dam near forever! We use one for winter use even....it does recquire either a lid or power for a stock tank heater to remain open in severe cold. They are cheaper than almost any bowl you can buy also. We have had problems finding suitable valves and float assemblies (see my post on stock water valves-ranch talk) but I'm sure we can find something reliable. We are watering over 350 cows out of one in the winter and would not willingly go back to a waterbowl! As for the valves they aren"t too bad a problem as long as you can check them daily.....Good luck!
Click to expand...

I will have to check that out. The cost for power to heat one of those must be a lot though!! Actually, we water all 150 head out of the water bowls all through calving and part of the fall, with out much trouble. They learn to go in small groups, but this bunch of cows, I don't know what is with them. In fact we water all 150 head of them in the fall out of a 150 gal. metal trough hooked up with a float (gravity flow) to a 1250 gal tank. We would go once a day to fill the tank and water whoever was there. No power, so setting anything else up wouldn't work.

We were watering out of a trough that 5-8 of them could drink out of at a time. That's when they broke the float. Of course it would certainly help if they could make a float that would allow more than a gallon or 2 per minute!!

Randi
Saskatchewan, Canada
My Website
www.geocities.com/randiliana2000
My Favorite Canadian Gardening group:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CdnRRandSeedexch/
My Favorite Canadian Ranching Group
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/canadianfoodanimals
 
Randiliana - I realize you posted this in June, and I might be a little late. But maybe this might help you next year. I find when the cows are quite close to water (1/4 mile) they come and go one or two at a time. As soon as they travel 1/2 mile or more, they all come at once. Just a little observation!
 
I feel so lucky, I have natural water in most pastures. I will try to get my daughter to post a picture of my water wagon that is used in two pastures where we need it. I put three 100 gal tanks at it with a float on each. When you get the floats they have several washers with them. If you will look they have different size holes in them. Small for high pressure to large for gravity systems. I use the small hole if I am going to hook it up to a pressurised system but for working with the water wagon I take the largest one and enlarge it even more ( you will need to try a couple of different size holes to find the correct size.)

You will find that if the total head pressure ( hieght from top water level in tank wagon) is under 10' you can have a fairly large hole and it will flow a lot of water!

Having three tanks seperated by the wagon (one on each side and one at the back) really helps also as it allows the dominant cows to seperate some and keeps the fighting down. I use the poly tanks from TSC so that I can stack and move them easily. Move the water to where the cattle are working and that will help as well.

I hope your mother was able to handle the cows and you got a good break.
 
I have seen the big scraper tire tanks and used a little " redneck ingenuity"

I used an old tractor tire cut the bead out on one side approx. 6inches in from the tread bars. this is the top side. then I drilled 3 holes side by side in the ground where I wanted the tank. put a 5 ft piece of capped plastic 8" pipe in each hole and tamp back in.drop the tire on, concrete it in making sure the center is 3 to 4 inches higher than the edge (6 bags of quick crete ) after the quick crete dries, saw off the pipes.

this whole thing cost me about $40. the cold water in the winter falls down the pipes, warm water rises. the "perculating" aspect keeps the tank from freezing. occasionally I get a little ice but never over1'4 inch or so. and if it does get ice, the cattle lean in to drink, the tire bends and breaks the ice!

mine are set up to fill off of a hydrant, one has a notch cut into it for a float valve, but the next one will be a totally self contained auto float.

I can get pictures if anyone is interested
 
Do you need to do anything other than the sacrete to seal the bottom??? It just seems you would get seapage and a muddy mess.

It sure sounds good enough to try - - - - I have several tires off my loaders 29.5X29 that would hold close to 1,000 gal - - - the idea of the pipes bringing ground heat up makes a lot of sense.

I don't think the cattle could flex these tires as the shipping weight on them is 3,000# but we have placed power poles in them and added concrete for temp power in the pit and the poles stay up even in high winds. I wonder if rubber has much R value for insolation - - - I'm sure it is better than metal tanks.
 
The main reason we went to industrial tire troughs is that they are pretty near indestructible.......use the snot out of them and sell them at your "retirement" sale! They will take a lot of cold weather without many problems:we do use floating stock tank heaters in the winter tanks but only need to plug them in below 0 F or if there is a severe wind chill. Very few problems even at -40 as long as the *#*# supply valves and floats work proper. The best part about the tires is that even if a big bunch comes in to drink (we have over 300 cows on the winter site) they can get watered fairly quickly without a lot of fighting or slipping. I wouldn't go back to waterbowls for the cowherd !
 
George said:
Do you need to do anything other than the sacrete to seal the bottom??? It just seems you would get seapage and a muddy mess.

It sure sounds good enough to try - - - - I have several tires off my loaders 29.5X29 that would hold close to 1,000 gal - - - the idea of the pipes bringing ground heat up makes a lot of sense.

I don't think the cattle could flex these tires as the shipping weight on them is 3,000# but we have placed power poles in them and added concrete for temp power in the pit and the poles stay up even in high winds. I wonder if rubber has much R value for insolation - - - I'm sure it is better than metal tanks.
Click to expand...

no, just get it in there and let it cure before turning the cows to it. I used 3 pipes on a 20.8 x 38 tire the bigger the tire, the more pipes I suppose.

I like the tractor tires simply because they were laying around, and plyable enough the cows could bend them to break the ice. A big industrial tire may be too tough to bend, I don't know for sure.
 
jigs said:
George said:
Do you need to do anything other than the sacrete to seal the bottom??? It just seems you would get seapage and a muddy mess.

It sure sounds good enough to try - - - - I have several tires off my loaders 29.5X29 that would hold close to 1,000 gal - - - the idea of the pipes bringing ground heat up makes a lot of sense.

I don't think the cattle could flex these tires as the shipping weight on them is 3,000# but we have placed power poles in them and added concrete for temp power in the pit and the poles stay up even in high winds. I wonder if rubber has much R value for insolation - - - I'm sure it is better than metal tanks.
Click to expand...

no, just get it in there and let it cure before turning the cows to it. I used 3 pipes on a 20.8 x 38 tire the bigger the tire, the more pipes I suppose.

I like the tractor tires simply because they were laying around, and plyable enough the cows could bend them to break the ice. A big industrial tire may be too tough to bend, I don't know for sure.
Click to expand...

It might be that it is just too early in the morning for my brain to work, but I don't think I understand how the pipes in the tank work. Could you post pic's? And maybe a more detailed explanation about the three pipes?

Do you mean that the 3 pipes are standing up and down under the tank and are buried 5 to 6 foot deep? Would it work to hook them all together with elbows at the bottom so that the water could flow better or is that just a waste of time?

I had a guy who I stayed with in high school who had a handy hint in the Western Horseman some years back. His hint was how you bury a 3 foot culvert about 6 feet deep under the tank an the warmth of the earth will keep the tank ice free. This system of yours sounds better, but I don't understand how you keep the water from leaking out.

When I put in a new tire tank, I just pour dry redi-mix, into the hole and then turn on the water. Concrete sets up best underwater, I was told. I've never had one leak around the rim by doing it this way. Make sure the fill dirt underneath the tank is packed good tho', or it can settle and then it will leak. :lol: I did have that happen! :lol:
 
We use tire tanks too, and are really happy with them.

On our artesian wells we put the tire down, put sand or dirt in and pack it down to about 4". Then bring a 3" overflow pipe up through the center. The rest of the center is concrete. We don't have to worry about the water freezing, since it is artesian.

We get tires off heavy equipment used at the mines in Gillette, Wyo. They are 8' and 12'. They can water a lot of cattle and the price is right!!

We've had several in for seveal years now and have had no problem with them.
 

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