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Horses suddenly stop drinking from Nelson auto waterer

Horse Care
#1

Over the last few weeks, my two horses have stopped drinking happily from the Nelson waterer in my dry lot (accessible from the pasture). They were living out full-time between September and early March with the Nelson as their only water source and they seemed to really like it. As you can see in this pic, they would even jostle each other to drink: https://libby2563.shutterfly.com/pictures/114.

Lately I have seen them standing there pawing at it instead of drinking, and I’ve found mud in the drinking bowl pretty often, presumably from the pawing. If I clean it out and stand there with them sometimes they will eventually drink deeply, but it’s preceded by pawing and taking small mouthfuls and spitting them out first. When I bring them into the barn they drink very deeply like they’ve been thirsty all day.

I can’t figure out what is going on! Some ideas I’ve had:

  1. They got shocked. It’s possible that this happened at some point but I stick my hand into the bowl very regularly for cleaning and have never felt anything. A few days after this behavior started I turned off the electricity because it’s only needed for heat and we have been above freezing.

  2. Something scared them while they were drinking once and they haven’t gotten over it. Seems unlikely, neither of them is that mentally fragile, but possible. Also they haven’t been turned out together since my new lease horse arrived so they would have to have both been scared on separate occasions.

  3. The water tastes bad. I’ve cleaned the bowl the same way I scrub buckets in the barn (water and a little Dawn). The water is drawn from the same well as the water they drink happily from the hose, Bar Bar A waterer at the barn, or buckets, so if there’s a foul taste it must be in the Nelson itself or the line between the pasture hose bib and the Nelson. I have thought of dropping a couple alfalfa cubes in there to flavor the water but it wouldn’t last long since the bowl is so small. I haven’t brought myself to taste it…

  4. There is some visual disturbance that makes them feel vulnerable. You can see in the pic that the Nelson is set in a fenceline with a board above it. Maybe as winter has turned to spring the angle of the shadows has changed and sticking their face in the gap bothers them somehow??

I have a video of the young horse pawing, then standing with his face above the waterer wistfully for a good 30 seconds, then snatching and spitting out a few mouthfuls very dramatically, then finally drinking deeply as I stand there supervising. I’ll try to post it if it would be helpful. I’d like opinions on what people think is causing this behavior.

Has this happened to anyone? Other than giving up on the $$$$ Nelson and putting out a trough, what can I do?

#2

I’m going to admit that I know absolutely nothing about Nelson automatic waterers. But is it possible that one of the inside components has rusted / oxidized and is making the water a bad taste?

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#3

Is yours a heated Nelson? If so, check the electrical. I know a horse who suddenly began refusing to drink from his waterer. Eventually found that it was shorting out randomly, and he’d been shocked while drinking.

It was a 20-ish stall barn, Nelsons in every stall, and over the space of about 5 years, it happened to a few of them.

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#4

Another vote for electrical

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#5

Yes, as I said in the OP, electrical was my first thought too but I’ve had the heater turned off for a month now and they’re still acting weird. Don’t you all think they would have gotten over it by now??

#6

I would have an electrician out to check it. There could be something that is causing a shock when they try to drink even with the heater off. It is still connected to the electric after all. If you have rubber soled shoes you may not feel what they do.

5 Likes
#7

Even with non-rubber soled shoes, you may not feel what they do. A barn where I used to board had this problem with their waterers. The horses would.not.drink, but I didn’t feel anything when I put my hand in. They corrected the electrical issue, and the horses started drinking again. In the meantime, we provided water in buckets.

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#8

Definitely check the electrical.

I will say - once in a while, I will stuck my hand in trough, scoop up a handful and slurp it up just to check water taste. Horse gets water from same well I drink at my house so I know water quality is good. I just check it every once in a while to make sure it hasn’t take on a metallic taste from water trough. If I were you, I’d do a taste test before calling electrician.

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#9

Okay, since you’ve really considered all of the “normal” options, how about a zebra? :lol:

Are there any critters that have moved in and are living under the rim or in the base?

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#10

definitely electrical.

#11

After a horse has been shocked (on the mouth, likely!) drinking from a waterer, they will be VERY leery of it. Maybe forever. The horse I know for a fact was shocked? It took us YEARS to get him to SOMETIMES use it. 6 years later, when I left that barn, he still had to have buckets.

Also, I’ve heard that horses, like dogs, can sense electrical currents that we humans don’t notice. I’d really get it checked out. Like I said, I worked in one training barn with 20 Nelsons, and this happened to more than one of them over a few years.

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#12

Well crap. I hope they aren’t scarred for life! The installer is coming to check it on Monday and if he can’t find anything I’ll try a certified electrician (he’s done a ton of waterers but is mostly an excavator these days so I think his electrician license has expired). I didn’t think about the rubber shoes thing, or that they could be getting shocked even with the heater off. Thanks all. :frowning:

#13

The current CAN be found with a “micro” meter. The current that the horses can detect is so slight that a human can not feel it. Horses with shoes on are even more susceptible to it, they are better grounded. The problem can be in the ground rod for the barn. The current may also be coming from a nearby electric fencing box (ask me how I know this!!!). Things improved when we updated the ground pole for the barn. But still, I can not run a “plug in” electric fencing box in the barn. Instead, I run a current from a remote solar box to power electric fencing lines around the barn. THIS is the only way I have found to solve this problem. I have no idea why it suddenly happens, when it was FINE in months previous. But your horses are not making this up, if they say there is a current in the water, there IS a current in the water. From something. Atmospheric conditions may also contribute. The electrician who looked at my problem said, “sometimes there is no known reason, electricity is magic”. This made the most sense to me, given the problems we had.

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#14

NancyM, you may be spot on. I just spoke with Nelson and they have suggested that stray voltage might be the problem. He said it could be coming from the electric fence charger, the ground rods, any electric line nearby, or even a transformer on the road! Wet ground could help transmit it too; we had a pretty dry winter but maybe that’s why your problem started suddenly?

This blows my mind. I have loved my auto waterers so far but I’m not sure I would have spent the $$$$ to install them had I known that factors sort of out of my control and hard to identify could render them unusable. I have heard of horses getting shocked by waterers of course but I thought that would only be a possible issue when the heater was on during the winter, and that correct and careful installation would prevent it. I’m trying not to freak out until the installer can look at it on Monday, but I’m really discouraged. :frowning:

NancyM, can you clarify how you adjusted your electric fencing to resolve the issue? How far away is your solar charger from the waterer or any water line? What about the ground rods? Did you need an electrician to troubleshoot? If so, did s/he have any previous experience with waterers or is a general electrician okay?

Here’s info on stray voltage and livestock that Nelson pointed me to if anyone else is interested: https://www.alliantenergy.com/wcm/groups/wcm_internet/@int/documents/document/mdaw/mde0/~edisp/014737.pdf

UGH.

#15

We had the same problem and it was stray electricity, although we don’t know where it was coming from. I called Nelson and they were tremendously helpful including links to some excellent articles that I gave to the b/o. Her brother tested it and found a tiny little charge that didn’t seem to bother everybody but definitely put my guy off it. We have major transmission power lines on huge towers going through the hayfield, so I called the electric company and they were out the next morning testing. They also looked the everything around the connections to the house and barns. Also provided suggestions on checking other aspects of the electrical system including the boxes.

Per suggestion of Nelson, we grounded the unit and it has been fine since. But the horses were back on a tank for several months. Fortunately we have kids who like to do chores so they kept it full through the summer. My horse was the last to begin using it when the were first installed and I was really afraid he wouldn’t go back to it. But he did without any problems. The guy at Nelson did have some suggestions from other people on how to re-train if needed.

My b/o put in 7 heated units outside probably about 10 years ago and they have been terrific, really reliable. If something does go wrong you can tell because the horses will start kicking the side – which is remarkably sturdy. So the DH will usually do an overhaul so that they will go into winter in good shape. I’m really glad she put them in because I know that my gelding will have fresh water at a comfortable setting since he is boarded outside.

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#16

Whew, thanks, walktrot. It makes me feel better that you resolved this and Nelson was helpful.

I didn’t do the installation myself so I had no idea it wasn’t already grounded somehow. Seems strange that that wouldn’t be standard protocol if stray voltage really is so common!

ETA: Ooh, I’m watching on the webcam right now as one of the horses drinks without pawing or swishing/spitting!! The donkey is standing there too waiting his turn I guess, but he’s such a little gray blob it will be hard for me to tell if he actually drinks anything. :lol:

#17

I’ve battled this problem on numerous occasions in the past 9 years since we installed the waterers. I don’t regret installing them, we NEED them, especially in the winter. We get REALLY cold here in winter, -38C is the coldest we have had since moving here, and my horses winter together, in a herd, turned out to pasture. The heated waterers are NECESSARY for us. But there are plastic ones now, and ones that are made of something other than metal, which were not available when we put ours in. I might have gone with those if I had had the choice.

Our issues have had various sources I think. The fella who put in some of the electrical stuff into our winter shed did not put a true ground rod in, just a copper wire. The wire deteriorated over a few years, and was not grounding the building well. We replaced that, and things improved. We had already put ground rods into EACH waterer, and grounding the pans directly, and that helped too, for a while. But again, started shocking. We had a local friend who was the electrician who looked at the problem, he had the micro meter. He had had no previous experience with the waterers. He couldn’t believe that there was a current there, but there was. He tried to ground it too. But again, a current ran and shocks were happening several months after he had done his grounding of the boxes. That was when I tried changing the source of the clicker box for the electric wire (because I was grasping at straws). The original situation was a plug in ticker box in the barn. But I had another system out in a field, with a solar box. I thought I’d give it a try, and see if it made a difference. It has, I have had NO further problems since switching the source of the electricity. I have no idea why this makes a difference, but it does. I just have to check that deer have not run through the wire as it comes through the lower pasture to get to the barn, so that my current gets as far as the barn. So, if you have tried EVERYTHING else, and still get shocks from the waterers, try removing the location and type of ticker box, if you are using electric wire on your paddock systems at the barn. My solar box is WELL REMOVED from the area, but that is only because that is where it already was and I just hooked into the line from it, which ran fairly close to the barn at it’s extremity. I don’t know how far away it would need to be to be effective in removing the current from the waterers, maybe only 100 feet? Maybe 10 feet? Mine is like… 1000 yards?

Good luck, and happy hunting for stray voltage! I still love my waterers, they are a life saver in our situation. Just solve the stray voltage problem, and you will love yours too.

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#18

If after all this you want to change waterers, go with a Bar-Bar-A Horse Drinker. (www.horsedrinker.com)
NO electricity! NO freeze. No bowl to scrub.

Some of the best money I spent when I bought my farmette.

#19

This is the exact reason my barn switched from Nelson to JUG waterers. And based on how he reacts to static shocks, I can tell you if my horse got zapped by a waterer once he’d likely never use it again. Thankfully, the waterers were changed before we moved in.

#20

I actually have a Bar Bar A too in the dry lot area behind the barn. The horses love it and so do I! But horses with grazing muzzles can’t use it so I went with a Nelson in the pasture. Cursing that decision a little bit at the moment but hopefully we can figure this out…

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