For those with horses at home- water troughs

Trio

Trio

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Jan 5, 2007
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The New Forest
i need to get some troughs sorted for the fields when we move to new place but am completely thick about how to go about it. have found places that sell the self filling field troughs and have a water supply to some of the fields but do you need to get a plumber to install them or can you do it easily?

sorry for the silly question but its been bugging me since i knew i had to install them - had a look at some and it looks complicated!! :confused:
 
You don't need a plumber but someone with a small digger...its the sort of thing we ask a local farmer to do for us.

Alternatively just have an outside tap installed and buy large quantities of hose, you do have to keep it in a garage or similar in winter, but we find it easier to keep tanks clean when we have to physically top them up each day. We use the same tanks just without the self-filling mechanism.
 
I use TubTrugs and various hosepipes in two fields. The field below the yard fills from the yard hose andf the further field has our pumphouse in it with a tap so we fill that field from there.

Our summer grazing has a river so they drink out of that mostly but Trigger who has a muzzle won't drink from the river with it on so he has large Trugs put out for him in the corner of the field nearest the pumphouse so they can be filled by hose.

Plan to replace Trugs with proper troughs over time but will buy from a farm sale not new - we missed out on two 70 gallon plastic ones last year at a sale - they went for €10 each! Gutted!

Will try again this year :)

I agree with EML re hose fill though - keeps them cleaner and I like to have a vague idea how much water they are getting through.
 
I thought about getting self-filling troughs but I have a thing for keeping their troughs clean so bought heavy duty hose pipe, buried that undergound and it goes to all the various troughs (5 in all) with intersections off to the various different fields.

The self-filling trough we do have is a bugger to keep clean with leaves and all sorts of small animals always being found in it (I'm not talking crystal clear clean here by the way - i am not a total freak:D)

To put in a self-filling trough all you need to do is dig a channel for the pipes to the relevant places, connect up the pipes (making sure the water is turned off!!) and hey presto, done!
 
We use big tubtrugs in our fields - not very technical! I tend to just quad water up there in the War Horse containers (most folk use them for taking to shows etc). I do come unstuck in the summer when its boiling hot and I've run out of quad bike petrol - not good lugging them up the hill...........
 
I have hose pipe attatched to the fence all the way from house to paddock - its alot of hose pipes. i think its a total pain in the butt. were on a water metre - and the amount of times ive forgotten to switch it off!!!

Its on my things to do list to get proper self fillers installed by a plumber - i did actually ask my plumber to do it last time here doing stuff in the house - he said he would - guess i will have to get onto him.
 
thanks peeps- all very useful stuff. will invest in a few of those 275 litre tubs as they look like they could do the job pretty easily to start with.
then will look into the self filling troughs.
 
Don't talk to me about water troughs.

On Saturday I cleaned out the one in my field and today I did one on the yard. Disgusting :mad:

They didn't have plugs so the whole thing required emptying by hand and then the sludge at the bottom taken out with a shovel. The one at the yard had little red wormy things in it and bubbles coming up where it was fermenting.

There must have been 4-6 inches of sludge in them and YO said he wasn't surprised as they have never been done. I'd be surprised if either of the other 2 yardmates will do the other one on the yard or even doing their field troughs although heaven knows they need it :eek:

Anyway I love have auto troughs. When the pipes froze this year there was wasn't enough water until it defrosted again but it had enough for a few days until water needed to be transported by hand by my yard mate. I was on the other half of my field and so was bringing water up by hand anyway.

Downsides are that once in place they are in place.

I actually still have buckets on my field in addition to the troughs to share out wear and tear and of cause they can be moved about.

Hose pipes are out for me. It's a good 2.5 mins mins walk to my top field so I use 25lt containers and take them up in the wheelbarrow.
 
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I personally would get the self filling troughs,makes life a lot easier,and they are perfectly easy to clean out with a bucket and brush!! My OH cleans ours at least once week,and only takes him 5 mins,just takes a bit of physical effort (hence why he does it and not me lol),he scoops out the water with the bucket and gives the bottom a brush off,they don't refill very quickly so have plenty of time to empty it and clean before it is filling again to any extent.

We actually installed one at our last field and didn't use a plumber,my OH did the actual fitting (very straight foreward),and a man with a digger dug the trench for the pipe.We put ours on slabs to make sure it was level,but am guessing they would also be fine on the ground??
 
Next time I clean mine out I won't be using a bucket to empty the water out....

I'll be using a bit of hose as, once going, the water will run out through that of its own accord ;)

The reason I couldn't this time is because it wasn't so much water as thick sludge :rolleyes:
 
This is what we use for food and water.

Old mussel line floats, eother cut in half for water, or take out a segment for a food trough that the wind cannot empty.

One half takes 40 gallons. Easy to tip up when you want to clean it out, but hard for horses to tip up, and low enough for dogs and ducks to reach too.

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Joyscarer said:
Next time I clean mine out I won't be using a bucket to empty the water out....

I'll be using a bit of hose as, once going, the water will run out through that of its own accord ;)

The reason I couldn't this time is because it wasn't so much water as thick sludge :rolleyes:
Click to expand...

Good point,I think my OH just finds it quicker to empty it himself with the bucket once he get's going,only takes him a few mins,plus stupid pony would only come over and interfere if we used a hose,probably try and eat it or something,tries to eat everything else:rolleyes:
 
I personally use those automatic drinkers you install in stables (the ones with a pallet or floating ball system).

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I much prefer as there's very little water in the bowl so the horses always get fresh water to drink (as opposed to your "stale" water in your hundreds-of-gallons troughs). It's also a doddle to clean, much less water wastage when you decide to clean with no gunge and best of all, no birds drown in there ! (OK, so the odd spider or wood lice :o )

Just a few technical considerations :
be careful of how much water pressure goes to the drinker - too much and you have a potential horsey-nose-shower problem as well as it making much more noise when filling
make sure you isolate your pipes well and always include a purge system for when we get freaky freezing winter weather to avoid burst pipes. I use trugs in winter ;)
 
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Hilariously, I saw yesterday that our field trough has a hugely long hose going into it from the main yard-brilliant! You've got to fill it by literally turning on the tap then dashing down to see the progress (through 2 fields)! :D

God, I love my yard! I'd rather be there than anywhere!:)
 
thanks again for the input here. i'll still get auto troughs in the paddocks but will opt for smaller ones and make sure there's drain points as well.

have had a lovely offer from a certain someone on heres hubby (thankyou!!) to install them as i'm useless at all water related undertakings and will end up flooding hampshire if i try.;)

Am also investing in some heavyduty tubs - the wilkinson ones look good and great value for money as well as a frost proof hose.

anyone know where you can get a frost free hose from??
 
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