The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Smallholding => Equipment => Topic started by: cambee on January 08, 2020, 09:13:09 am
-
Hello all. We have a mobile mini water bowser for one of our fields that we bought from a smallholder site a couple of years ago. It’s like a mini tanker on wheels with a tow bar and it has a 5 inch flexi pipe with a tap coming off it so you can manually fill buckets etc. I’ve been wondering if it would be possible to attach some sort of automatic ballcock type trough/drinker to it instead. Does anyone have a set up like this and if so what did you use. I did once see an automatic drinker attached to a water butt and I should have got some advice then but I can’t remember where that was. Thanks
-
You may not have enough pressure to operate a standard ball valve reliably Cambee, so an electrical float switch and pump may be a better option?
-
Ah ok there’s no electric in the field though as too far away from the house.
-
Surely for a trough with a ballcock the pressure that matters is that which is generated by the buoyancy of the ball in the trough and isn't affected by the pressure coming from the head of water flowing in?
We have a small trough like that connected to a pretty sluggish flow of water from a tank that has very little head above it and it works fine. I suspect you'll just need to find an appropriate coupling that reduces the 5 inch pipe down to whatever connection the trough has. It might be easier to cap that off and put a new outlet in the bowser itself that is the right size to begin with. MDPE fittings are pretty easy to work with.
-
I bought an automatic drinker valve off ebay. It's a self contained unit, about 6" long with a little float inside and will clip onto a bucket or trough. It works on the water pressure produced by gravity and can be attached by a hose to your water supply. It's brilliant and turns any water container into an automatic drinker.
-
I bought an automatic drinker valve off ebay. It's a self contained unit, about 6" long with a little float inside and will clip onto a bucket or trough. It works on the water pressure produced by gravity and can be attached by a hose to your water supply. It's brilliant and turns any water container into an automatic drinker.
That sounds just the job! Do you remember the make of it? Thanks
-
I got it from Fearings.
It's called a Water valve troughmatic.
-
I used to make these for the dogs all the time albeit on a smaller scale. As long as when you have the cap on your water bowser it gives an air tight seal all you need is a hose set at the level you want the water in your drinking vessel (trough or in my case dog bowls) once the water reaches the right level it stops automatically. As soon as the water level drops through being drunk or evapouration it fills up to the correct level again automatically.
When we get some animals here this year I intend on building a larger scale one with an a IBC.
-
Thanks both. I’ve ordered one Landroverroy so hopefully that will work for us too
-
I used to make these for the dogs all the time albeit on a smaller scale. As long as when you have the cap on your water bowser it gives an air tight seal all you need is a hose set at the level you want the water in your drinking vessel (trough or in my case dog bowls) once the water reaches the right level it stops automatically. As soon as the water level drops through being drunk or evapouration it fills up to the correct level again automatically.
When we get some animals here this year I intend on building a larger scale one with an a IBC.
I'd be interested to see how that goes with an IBC Kiran. Obviously with a small drinker for dogs (and those used for poultry) the gravitational force of the water is small. Where you have a ton of water in an IBC, do you think it will be sufficiently water tight not to leak? I also suspect that the shape and thin wall of the IBC will be insufficient and that even if your seals are watertight, the actual container will be implode, ie be drawn inwards by the sheer weight of water.