What do y’all use to keep the water in your troughs clean? We dump ours every 4-5 days and scrub them then refill them but that wastes a lot of water.
I don’t fill mine to the top. Just about half way. I dump it daily and fill with fresh water. The heat makes the water too hot to not dump it daily. I am always surprise at how many farms don’t refill troughs and the horses get hot water to drink.
A couple of 1" chlorine pool tablets per 100 gallon trough keep ickies at bay, and a pool skimmer to fish out bits of hay, grain, etc. so they don’t have to be dumped out very often.
Jennifer
This time of year, I do as LoriT does. Although I fill mine about 3/4 of the way since they’re relatively small. By the time I get home at night, the horse will have drunk it down to about 1/4 full and it’s as hot as bath water.:disgust: Then I dump, rinse and refill. And scrub once a week.
www.clearwatertroughs.com have been using this product for 3 wks and the troughs are soooooooooo clear and the horses are drinking even more from them----they have a running creek also
I’m dumping mine regularly, too. This year one is particularly nasty since there’s a wild turkey that has decided that one of them is his personal bathtub. And he likes to alternate between wet baths in the trough and dustbaths in front of the gate. Nothing like a trough full of muddy turkey. Gross. But also pretty amusing, and I have two troughs in use, so I haven’t tried to stop him from abusing one of them. Though if he starts mucking up the other one too, we may have to eat him. :lol:
[QUOTE=nashfad;7090207]
www.clearwatertroughs.com have been using this product for 3 wks and the troughs are soooooooooo clear and the horses are drinking even more from them----they have a running creek also[/QUOTE]
Reading the warnings at the bottom of the Product Description page, I wouldn’t use that stuff in my horses’ water:
"Keep the tablets out of the reach of children.
Avoid contact with eyes
Limit contact with skin.
Do not ingest the tablets
Avoid breathing dust from the tablets.
Do not mix with acid.
Do not use with fish or fowl.
Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water after handling the product.
First Aid Safety:
If inhaled and you are having difficulty breathing move to fresh air. If difficulty breathing continues call 911 poison control or medical personnel to assist you.
Contamination of skin or clothing. Remove contaminated clothing. Rinse skin with water for 15-20 minutes.
Contact in eyes. Hold eye open and flush with water for 15-20 minutes.
If swallowed sip water, do not induce vomiting. Call 911, poison control (1-800-222-1222) or medical personnel to assist you."
But then they say this in their FAQ section:
“FAQs
Are the clear water tabs safe for my horses? Yes Clear water tabs are even safe for human consumption.”
I just don’t fill mine when they’re starting to get icky. That is, if at night they should probably be refilled, I don’t do it. By morning or sometime the next afternoon they’ll be empty enough to dump easily. Of course I only do this on days I’m not working so the ponies don’t go without water - I only usually work 3 days a week so it’s not that difficult to dump them on a regular basis.
They use these tablets in countries that have nasty diseased water. This is what they use to make it safe to drink. Of course, you should definitely handle the tablets or ingest them in the raw tablet form. They are documented to be safe for humans/livestock when used in water. I also empty my troughs about every 3 wks now instead of having to fight with an aluminum 300 gallon tank every other day. The 300 gal Rubbermaid is not a fight to stand up and rinse out but the other one is.
I have fish in mine, and have really big tanks.
I dump and scrub as needed - I also freshen up as needed. That means that sometimes I freshen up the tubs halfway through the day or at least daily. I only fill to the top if I know I am going to be too busy for a couple days to freshen up. Let the tubs go low if I know they need cleaning.
I also add a few drops of bleach each time I clean it and find it keeps the tub much fresher.
years ago we put hydrants in most of the pastures and paddocks. During the summers we usually use smaller 40 gallon water tanks, they are about 12 inches tall, these are emptied usually by the horses every two days or so, cleaned and refilled… pain in the butt however we found out the horses prefer to drink from the smaller tanks as it may be more natural (well the miniatures will still want to drink from the 150 gallon tank just prove to the others that are big time horses also)
I only fill the trough with as much water as my horses will drink in a 24hr period plus ~ 15gal extra just in case. Both my knuckleheads occasionally like to play in the water, one likes to stick both muddy front legs in and pretend he’s a Rockette.
I bail the water into a wheelbarrow in the morning so a) I’m not repeatedly dumping water in the same spot by the shed, and b) I have it for other uses.
After morning hard feed I use the waste water in the wheelbarrow for washing up of buckets and spoon, or having a pail of water to wash a poopy bottom, etc. When time to dump I either dump it on a pee spot so the ground doesn’t get so badly scorched, or if the weather has been dry I dump it on a compost pile to keep it nice and moist.
I find if I let the water go more than 48 hours in the summer it gets gross fast and the horses simply won’t drink as much.
And maybe its just a thing, but it makes me feel good to provide my horses water clean enough I would be tempted to drink it.
I have to dump and scrub, 'cause mine seem to regurgitate dirt into their water.
[QUOTE=Liberty;7090238]
Reading the warnings at the bottom of the Product Description page, I wouldn’t use that stuff in my horses’ water:
"Keep the tablets out of the reach of children.
Avoid contact with eyes
Limit contact with skin.
Do not ingest the tablets
Avoid breathing dust from the tablets.
Do not mix with acid.
Do not use with fish or fowl.
Wash hands thoroughly with soap and water after handling the product.
First Aid Safety:
If inhaled and you are having difficulty breathing move to fresh air. If difficulty breathing continues call 911 poison control or medical personnel to assist you.
Contamination of skin or clothing. Remove contaminated clothing. Rinse skin with water for 15-20 minutes.
Contact in eyes. Hold eye open and flush with water for 15-20 minutes.
If swallowed sip water, do not induce vomiting. Call 911, poison control (1-800-222-1222) or medical personnel to assist you."
But then they say this in their FAQ section:
“FAQs
Are the clear water tabs safe for my horses? Yes Clear water tabs are even safe for human consumption.”
[/QUOTE]
That is probably the same warning that is on just about anything that is a chemical. Sounds just as safe as any of the other water tabs out there.
I have done fish in the past and they have worked quite well. This summer I have not gotten around to buying any. I fill the trough about 2/3 and that is enough for my horses to drink in a couple of days. I then drain what is left and wash out the trough and refill it. I use mint Listerine to wash as it seems to help kill some of the gunk and leaves the trough minty fresh.
Mine has been gross this year… Maybe because it is in full sun but way more algae growth than ever before. May try those chlorine tablets, it is driving me nuts!
I keep a fine kitchen sieve hanging next to the trough. Every day, twice a day, it’s skimmed of any particulate matter. This extends the life of the water.
I dump & scrub weekly tho.
ETA: Went ahead & ordered some Clear Water Trough Tabs. We’ll see!!
A tip I got here on COTH, was to use a Power Washer on the water tanks, gets all that green stuff off that a brush won’t remove. I did the bleach thing, and it helped a little, but not lasting more than about 10 days before growth was back.
So I dumped the tanks, took them to the car wash in my truck, used Water Only setting and just blasted off the green layering. I DID have to put water tank against the truck bumper, the pressure was moving it all over! For about $3, I washed 4 quite green, even though bleached, tanks clean of their green layers. The green stayed gone a LONG time, even in warm sunny days. Over a month of very clean tanks, and green was REALLY slow growing even when it reappeared.
Now we have a power washer of our own, so I can do the tanks when I like, and have them sparkling all the time. Still only need to do that every month or so, especially if you add a bit of bleach, not much, when cleaning them.
I guess the pressure of the water just removes all the plant life in any crevices of the tank. I have Rubbermaid plastic, galvanized, and black rubber tubs for watering and they all stay VERY clean a long time, after being pressure washed.
I try to dump tanks weekly, gets mosquito larvae out of the water, gives my big tree drinks in dry times. If it is really hot, I only half fill the tank, so I can add cold water daily, to the warm water that has been setting in the sun. Dumping tanks daily is a HUGE use of water, lots of wastage. Once a week, not so much.
I looked at swimming pool tablets, which someone said they put in tanks. Reading the detailed information on packaging of pool tables and decided they were much too strong for water tanks, because they are calculated for 20,000 or MORE Gallons of water!! No way to break them down for our small tanks and be sure of the mix ratio. NOT letting my horse get hydrated on bleach/chlorine with a few drips of water in it!! Sometimes I just can’t “save” by using non-horse stuff for a horse application.
Give the power washer or pressure washing at the car wash place a chance on your tanks. No chemicals involved when you rinse tanks before refills. Does keep them green-free for a fair amount of time. I got a LOT of washing done for a three dollars, tanks were sparkly clean.
An option for going the large-tank-with-fish route is to also offer buckets that can be dumped and scrubbed daily. I really like the large tank because I know my horses always have water, even if I am delayed and cannot get home until late. Amusingly, the horses seem to prefer the fish water, but at least this way I feel confident I’ve given them the option.
[QUOTE=poltroon;7090277]
I have fish in mine, and have really big tanks.[/QUOTE]
What do you do with the fish when you have to clean the trough? Or do the fish keep it that clean to where you don’t have to?
And what kind of fish?
