Pasture Waterers
Pasture Waterers
The first considerations are water and electrical access. Both can be expensive depending on the distances.
Installing a water line can be expensive, as it requires plumbing expertise and digging a trench. Trenchers are expensive to rent and are not the easy to operate. (Hint: If you run a plastic line place short strips of used electrical wire every few feet in the trench as these will allow you located the plastic line with a detector.) Ensure you know the frost line level for you area, as the water line must be buried below that level.
Running an electrical line will be expensive. We HIGHLY recommend you run the wire in plastic conduit. It will be more expensive, but it will prevent any compromise to the underground line. (Hint: Plan ahead as you may want to add other electrical devices to the line, which dictates the size of the line.
We have a well that supplies water to the waterers with shut-off valves interspersed in the supply line to allow us to shut-off the water supply to individual waterers while others remain on.
We also had W. P. Mullins, Inc. install electrical connections for the required deicers.
We installed what many refer to as a cattle waterer, pictured below, that we purchased from Southern States. We installed one (Hint: Follow the installation instructions carefully as these normally require a concrete pad to sit on.) in the stallion’s pasture and one in the mare’s pasture. They are extremely durable and the 20 plus gallons of water will not freeze in VA winters.
If your ranch allows two pastures to share a waterer, the one pictured here can be installed perpendicular to the fence line. You must consider how many horses will be drinking from it. We do not allow more than two horses to drink from this waterer. Remember, horses are protective of feed, foals and water. DO NOT use this technique for stallion pastures.
RECOMMENDATION: For large waterers you will have to install a concrete pad for the waterer to sit on and of course run the water line under and up into the middle of the pad. These waterers ARE NOT easy to install or quick to install. You must have concrete and plumbing experience to install, which is more than pouring a simple slab and installing a kitchen faucet.
You will have to train your horse to push the red ball down to access the water or you can remove the red ball. Start by using a tennis ball, then increase ball size. The red balls help keep derbies out and prevents the top half inch of water from freezing in the winter. Other than that, our horses love it.
We use a waterer deicer (pictured below) we bought from Southern States. It is from Farm Innovators, Inc, UPH-15 1500 watt deicer. It inserts into the drain plug for the cattle waterer. It heats the water and keeps the top of the water level ice-free. Ensure you have adequate current to run the deicer.
RECOMMENDATION: Rule #23, buy the waterer and deicer from the same location and ensure the two work together. I prefer a hands-on trial at a local store.
Location of Pasture Waterers
Give careful consideration to the location of the pasture waterer. We put ours to close to the building, which makes it difficult to put a weed whacker in there to trim the grass.
We put the mare’s waterer to far from the fence, creating a space small enough for a foal. As you can see from the picture below we had to add some T-posts and line to block the space.
