something that deep you will need a pretty large excavation just to have room to make the repairs … unless the repair person has some exceptionally long arms
I know, ugh. I get made fun of for my monkey arms all the time so I was thinking my husband can dangle me upside-down by my broken ankle! (Just kidding obviously.)
@Simkie Great idea, thank you!
Fwiw, my spigots have a 4’ bury depth. I used a post hole digger to make a roughly 2’x2’ hole (all that was allowed by the surrounding concrete) and could reach the bottom by lying on the ground and reaching in. I couldn’t get the end of the spigot off the supply pipe, so called the well guy, who had his young, lean associate on the ground reaching into the hole, and he was able to remove the old spigot & install the new one.
Tearing up the concrete aisle would have been required to make the hole bigger, and I just had zero desire. I did make a bigger hole digging up the outside spigot, but still just with the post hole digger and not large enough for a person to stand in.
A wee little excavator will make the digging easier for sure, but it’s entirely possible to make a hole with a post hole digger and you don’t necessarily need to make one big enough to stand in with 4’ bury depth!
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You make it sound so easy! I’m so tempted to just start digging and see what I can do, but I’m almost healed enough to ride again for the first time in almost two months and I don’t want to re-cripple myself.
The wonderful contractor who installed the waterer (as well as my dry lot, arena, etc) can rearrange his schedule to help me out next week. It won’t be cheap but I would rather give him the money than anyone else, and at least it will get done…
Maybe not easy! But not impossible, either. If you’ve got a guy coming next week, just wait for that–don’t risk yourself. Getting to ride is why we do all this, right? 
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Meant to update this sooner but my contractor found the leak after not a horrible amount of digging (some with the bobcat and some with a shovel, when he got near the pipes). The brass connector between the waterer hose and the underground water line had two small cracks near the threads plus a larger, crescent-shaped hole/crack. 
When we uncovered the line, water was spraying out of the crescent-shaped hole. I’m guessing that the previous, milder leaking may have been from the small cracks.
The contractor said these brass connectors “used to last a lifetime” but have gotten thinner and poorly made over the years so this happens sometimes now. I’m sure the cents the manufacturer saved on the brass is totally worth the hundreds of dollars I had to spend on the repair (sarcasm).
On the downside, the birds are sad that their new water fountain/bath area is now dry.
Glad to hear the issue was a fairly accessible connector. 
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Everyone working great now that the fitting has been replaced? I too am glad that it was an easy fix.
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Yes! All nice and dry. I hope this connector lasts longer than 5 years… It was relatively easy but still ended up being quite expensive because I couldn’t do any of the digging myself. I did have the contractor do another project for me while he was there to make it more worth everyone’s while though.
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