The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Livestock => Pigs => Topic started by: lars64 on June 20, 2014, 08:25:50 pm
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I often read this forum and get lots of useful information, but being relatively inexperienced, I can’t really contribute and help others much. However, reading a post the other day made me think of sharing my home made automatic “pig waterer”. I'm sure other people have come up with the same thing! Last year we were running out several times a day with buckets of water for the pigs and inevitably there were times when I got out there and their water trough (a belfast sink) was dry. So this year I decided to do something similar to the automatic gravity fed irrigation system I set up for the polytunnel a couple of years ago. It’s very simple, but works really well. I bought (£75) another IBC on a metal pallet (opaque ones previously used for food are good) and some fittings (about £15) to convert the outlet to 25mm HDPE. My local farmers hardware shop sold me a sturdy galvanised trough (£55) and swapped the standard (mains pressure) valve for a low pressure one. This is the important bit, basically these let through FAR more water so work perfectly with gravity fed systems. You really need next to no height for the IBC (or none at all if you’re happy to leave a foot or so of water in the bottom). I put the IBC a few feet away up a slight slope and the system works perfectly. I can either fill the tank with a VERY long hose, or just disconnect it every once in a while and carry it back to a tap on the tractor forks. I must admit that even though my tractor has a 1 tonne lift I would only ever half fill it just to be on the safe side (if you remember back to school days, 1000 litres of water is 1 metric tonne).
Anyway, a few hours work = happy pigs with a constant supply of drinking water and no more carrying buckets and buckets over the field.
Hope that helps someone, happy to give more details if anyone wants.
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I had the same problem so I bought an automatic drinker with a float on from my local agri store I already had a blue barrel drilled a hole at the bottom and put a brass tap on there with a hose connecting it to the drinker all for £27 it's the best money I have ever spent just need to make sure the barrel has water and the pigs are happy and no tipped water anywhere