Auto Water

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for those of you on wells...the solution to the electricity being out is really quite simple. Use a solar panel on the pump house. If you look on the internet, you can find instructions to make them yourself fairly reasonable.
 
You may have to order the enameled ones - they are a little more and I haven't found them in stock at TSC. Have bought a couple at feed stores and ordered some through farm supply catalogs.

Jan
 
I, too, love mine. We bought a Ritchie Watermatic 150 (I think?) for the big horses years ago, and loved it so much, we ended up buying another one, a smaller one, the watermatic 150s I think, a couple years later, because we had goats. I like this one better. It's a little shorter, and the top between the two basins is not flat to hold stuff that may fall on it, it's like pyramid shaped. The waterer is also nicer to look at, it's forest green, rather than the ugly Ritchie yellow and red. So for minis, I would definitely suggest the smaller one! Mine is all poly, no metal, which I wanted. The metal ones are more expensive anyway, but come with built in heaters. The poly ones, you have to buy the heaters separately. Not a big deal. Still cheaper in the long run. And, a friend of mine bought the expensive metal one, and she can't shut one side off while using the other, I can with my cheaper model! Nor can she drain hers! I can! They are a breeze to clean...I bought a toilet brush that I use just for cleaning the waterers. After several years of use, I've had no color fading, no cracks, nothing....it works great, and we installed it ourselves. The one for the big horses is under a lean to, that doesn't need to be cleaned quite as often, but the green one is outside in the sun, and that one can get gross very quickly. Probably because of the sun and the dark color of the waterer. But we've had great luck with ours....and I'd never want to go back to tanks!

ANgie
 
Whatchagonnado when the power goes out?
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Put the buckets out dear Liza-dear Liza...put the buckets out...

Besides, with the power out, you can't fill a bucket either.
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Marty I do hear what you are saying and while the power has not gone out the pressure tank has frozen before so I do worry about it and ALWAYS keep water buckets in the barn and the turn outs full. I make sure I have a 50 gallon and 100 gallon tank filled daily in the turn outs. I would be worried if I had auto waterers that if that happened they would only have the small amount of water in the bowls..

I am not a huge fan of auto waterers although I wish I could try one of those solar ones.. We have one but the float broke.. I have not yet been able to find a float to fit and make it not leak so I turned it off a long time ago.

I am like some of the others wanna know who is drinking how much when.. although a friend told me there is a gadget you can put on your auto waterers that will tell you how much they drink.

Guess it all comes down to personal preference :)
 
This is a really interesting topic! I've never had automatic waterers, but I often thought about it. It's definitely good to hear the pros and cons of them.
 
The reason we've never gotten auto waters is because we'd always heard they bust and leak often (after reading comments here though, it doesn't seem like that's a common issue). I only know one barn in our area that has automatic waters and they complained they leak a lot. Also, living on the Gulf Coast=hurricanes which= power outage
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Someone else also pointed out algae and LOTS of bugs...for US I just don't think it'd be worth it to get the automatics. Maybe if we had more horses (we have five minis and two big horses on 5 acres) or if we lived in an area (like the desert) where water issues were greater.
 

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