Automatic waterer for the animals

By the end of June we are getting ready to receive additional animals. We have currently one horse and four sheep. Soon we will have also twenty your cows (17 females and 3 males) eating the gras and helping us with our effort to regenerate soil using principles of Holistic Management.

The water tower is located next to a well some 100 meters away from where the buildings are. It gets filled by a gasoline powered pump that we have to start manually. The pump runs for as long as it has gas and when it stops the tower is almost full. The previous land owners had run two water lines to the buildings and to a number of pig waterers set into the ground.

We have a temporary extension connected to the main water line and thus have water available at the new house. At the moment we are trying to make our life a bit easier and not build or create anything that’s hard to change later.

In order to prepare for the cows we created a fence run that basically says “your area is that side of the fence” and divides the walled-in area in a human-side and an animal-side.

A 1000 liters IBC tank holds the water. A short hose connects it to the waterer which uses a floating ball to open and close the valve. The tank is placed so that the larger animals can’t get to it and disconnect the hose by accident.

The second waterer is made for cows. We are reusing the IBC tank inside the corral we made earlier on for the sheep. The sheep now run free within the whole area dedicated to animals.