By Dan Dyck, Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute, Portage la Prairie
Watering livestock on the wide open range is as necessary today as it was a hundred years ago. The difference is that there are more alternatives today, and that makes livestock watering easier and more sophisticated.Much has been made recently about the dramatic increases in animal performance when drinking clean water. Studies at Stavely, Alberta have shown that cattle drinking water directly from a dugout experience a 23 per cent reduction in weight gain compared to animals drinking water from a well or stream.
These numbers are dramatic. Further studies need to be done to see if this kind of performance can be repeated over a longer term. However, the results do support some producers' observations that water quality affects animal performance.
The recent Alberta studies have overshadowed other important benefits related to improved water management practices. The biggest of these is risk management. Risk management is the practice of limiting risks to your investment by identifying them and making appropriate changes in your management. Good water management practices can reduce the risk of disease problems or injury in your herd, and decrease soil erosion in and around water bodies.
Good water management means improving water quality. This can be done in many ways, but the most important is to limit the herd's direct access to water bodies. The Prairie Agricultural Machinery Institute (PAMI) recently published The Stockman's Guide to Range Livestock Watering from Surface Sources to assist producers in choosing a system that will work for them. The 36-page guidebook outlines alternatives to watering livestock from surface water sources, examines the pros and cons, and does an economic analysis of each alternative. Research for the guidebook was sponsored in part by the Canada-Manitoba Green Plan and the Agriculture Development Fund in Saskatchewan.
PAMI found that fencing off dugouts and installing access ramps is the least expensive method. Access ramps direct cattle to the water at a location you prefer. A gravel base provides firm footing for animals. Start with ten feet as a minimum width for a ramp, regardless of herd size. Beyond that, a good rule of thumb for sizing ramps is ten head per foot of width. A head stock or rail fence across the width of the ramp limits how far cattle can wade into the water and reduces manure contamination of the water. Other alternatives are often associated with eliminating direct access to water. These include solar pumping systems, gravity flow reservoirs, windmills, pipelines, hydraulic ram pumps, nose pumps, and slingpumps. Fencing off the dugout and pumping or hauling water to the animals are other options.
A unique alternative is the slingpump. This device, originally from Sweden, uses water current in a flowing stream or river to pump water. Water current drives a propeller on the pump, allowing it to move low volumes of water (as long as the current is sufficiently fast), to an elevated storage tank. The storage tank can then gravity-feed water to a stock trough. The slingpump can also be wind-driven, for use on lakes or dugouts.
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The most common livestock-powered system is the nose pump. Since animals deliver the power, they can be used in remote locations and are easily moved from one water source to another. To order the guidebook, call PAMI at 1-800-567-7264. Cost is $10.00. |
