supplying Water to cattle on land away from farm

F.D

Hi We have land away from the farm 45 acres approx, there is a river running at the bottom of the land and traditionally the cattle drank out of a drain that flowed into it, the problem this area keeps getting mucked up, and this year rather than cleaning it out we started filling a tanker from the river and filling drinkers, its obivious the cattle prefere drinking this water
The problem is the time spend filling the tank and going down to fill up drinkers etc,
one advantage has been the cattle are kept in paddocks up away from the river and grazing tighter, rather that roaming the whole field

option 1 is clean the drain/drinking pool area, cattle would be roaming 20 acres at a time
2 Drill a well and pump water to drinkers, you would need esb or something to pump it properly, i presume unless there are other methods windmill etc

If any body has any opinions or solutions they have used i would be interested to hear

vanderbadger

have you ever heard of a pasture pump, its like a single bowl drinker, anyway you can run a pipe from these things a long distance to a river or similar,up to 240 m I think accroding to spaldings site, I dont have any myself but i think they are supposed to be a good job, sounds ideal for you
google pasture pump, they have them in the kerry farm stores even

powerfarmer

Sound like what you need is one of these
http://www.lifewater.ca/ram_pump.htm
its called a ram pump or sometimes known as a hydraulic ram its a pump powered by water flowing through it. They have been around for years

you could use it to fill a header tank then supply the drinking troughs from that.
OR what about a solar powered pump they are popular in the US with people living "off grid"
http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/yago91.html

CJhaughey

Why don't you just get a windmill powered waterpump?
They are the most widely used waterpumps in most countries that have a reasonable wind supply.
In fact the Midwest USA was converted to pasture by these devices

pakalasa

There is also this type of pump, where the cattle do the pumping.
Haven't used so cannot vouch!!

http://public.fotki.com/MyraSawers/2_0_0_6/holidays__short/midweek_walkers/35_water_pump_for_cattle.html

Oldtree

Only problem with wind pump is no wind no water (reserves in a header tank may get used up too). If you use a powered system don't forget to get an overflow sorted out.

The easiest and cheapest system, if you already have a tanker, may be to work out usage and get a huge header tank with pipes down to the drinkers (with floats to cut off when full) and fill that as necessary.

Any sheds to harvest rain from or divert to a header tank?

Turbury

The lister pasture pump (as mentioned by other posters) is a good job. I use one for suckler cows in conjunction with troughs from a header tank filled by rain water from shed roofs.

THe pasture pump alone would not really be suitable for lactating cows.
I know another farmer that used one pasture pump for 20 heavy bullocks for the complete summer - no problems.

F.D

The pasture water pump sounds good we are grazing aroung 50 cattle on this land so it could be be under pressure to feed them all, also 240 m would only get up half way through the field i'd reckon, the wind mill idea looks interesting, i had the same question about the lack of wind and what would happen, i never though about having a storage tank, is there any irish companies selling these systems i wonder?

Sam Kade

What about making 2 mobile water tanks with water troughs mounted on the back fed with gravity flow. You can also put a ballcock inside the tank so that when you bring it back to your yard you can connect a water hose and when the tank fills the water will shut off without having to keep checking it. When one tank is empty replace it with the full tank. That way you will always have water in the field.

thekooman

hi all,
my dad has about 8 acres away from the house with a river running at the bottom of the land, similar scenario to FD but this 8 acres is divided into 3 fields and so he has to give cattle water in a tanker.
he was wondering about putting in a pump to pump it to a header tank but there is no power at the land so was wondering about solar or a wind turbine.

i remember about 20 years ago seeing the Lister pasture pump at the ploughing championships but with the drop down to the river it wouldn't have enough power to pump it the height plus its about 250metres to the first field.

does anyone know of a company that would be providing a solar power/ wind turbine solution along with the water pump or should he be looking at a plumber and a wind/sun energy installer to get the 2 working together?

i would think that this is a common problem on farms around ireland.