Best Watering Systems for Livestock and Grazing

Описание: (0:04) Farmers or ranchers can have the best-designed fencing system in the world, but their system will falter without adequately designed and placed watering facilities.

In this installment, livestock management specialist Michael Hall discusses several watering facility design options farmers should consider.

(0:23) The water trough itself does not have to be elaborate. Depending on the landowner's desire and management intensity, any number of concrete troughs or freeze-proof drinking fountains can be installed.

(0:45) “I like these kinds of tanks. You can see that it was probably a black plastic drum that was cut in half; not a lot of expense was put in.” Floating in this drum is a Jobe float, a very high-volume float that delivers a lot of water.

(1:12) Generally speaking, within the standards, Hall recommends that 800 feet is an ideal distance for cattle to travel to water. “That gives them a fairly short distance to travel to get to their water, and there's not a lot of congregating around the water trough.”

(1:33) There are places across the country where cattle travel much further than that to get water, but the 800-foot length is for grazing efficiency. One of the good things about being able to move troughs up and down the line rather than having them stationary is that there's not a lot of disturbance around the water tank itself.

(1:56) Once farmers put in something permanent, like a concrete or plastic tank, there will have to be a concrete slab or armor around it to keep from getting mud in it. “I like that I can just move my plastic barrel as the cows move up and down.”

Whatever system farmers design, it's important to think adaptively and work within the USDA NRCS's Prescribed Grazing Practice Standard #528 and Watering Facility Practice Standard #614, which are available on the USDA's Field Office Technical Guide (FOTG) website.

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