We are going to run pipe to each stall individually and are playing around with the idea of whether to do buckets or auto waterers in each stall. I see pros and cons to both.
What do you prefer and why?
You can see my place and it’s progress on my original thread: https://www.chronofhorse.com/forum/forum/discussion-forums/around-the-farm/340533-updated-new-pics-buying-a-farmette-with-gutted-barn
SOOOOOOOOOO much prefer auto waterers. TIMES A MILLION. But make sure you get a kind that is easy to clean, because it’s a real PITA if they’re not. Nelsons for the win here–just pop the bowl out and rinse it.
Only con is not having total visibility on what the horse is drinking. But if you’re ever concerned, it’s easy enough to block or turn off the waterer and hang a bucket.
Fresh water, all the time, that I don’t have to lug, and no hoses, far outweighs any downside.
Signed, used to have auto waterers and doesn’t anymore 
We use these:
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q…D8&FORM=IQFRBA
Hubby drills a drain plug in the bottom and puts in a valve for daily draining/cleaning.
Love the big size.
Well, somehow I linked a picture of all their products lol. Its the duramate auto waterer
My guy won’t drink from a metal automatic waterer. However, he happily drinks from his Lil Spring plastic automatic waterer in his field. Automatic waterers are great. Just make sure they are properly grounded by an electrician so there is no chance of any stray electrical current going into the water and horse.
I never liked auto waters because I couldn’t really monitor intake. If they have improved them with some way of keeping track then I might consider them. Of course, there’s always the horse who likes to play with them and flood the stall.
my recommendation… http://store.rammfence.com/Images/Waterers/flexible-stall-waterer.jpg these… so much cleaner, the horses always get cool water even in the summer, don’t attract flies or rodents. I have them in the pastures as well. Because you are in Orlando you don’t need to worry about freezing. I used them in Germany for many years and now I have the same ones. Work great. And the water intake… Watch your horse. you can feel the skin and check the poop that will tell you if it drinks enough water
I have seen water meters that can be attached to the supply lines of each waterer. In most cases it is a very easy retro fit and pretty inexpensive.
Thoughts from someone who does not have autowaterers (the list of things I think of when I think I might want them).
I own a horse that likes to manure in his water bucket so whatever I install would have to be easily removed to be cleaned out, can the auto waterer do this?
Can I tell how much water my horse drank?
Will it work for a horse that likes to dunk their hay?
Will it work for a horse that is sensitive to noises? (the noise of the water filling as they drink.)
I always end up right back with trough and buckets.
Me too, having been where they had those small automatic waterers, the lack of a larger supply is something I was never comfortable with.
Sure, larger waterers are way not as clean, but when you see horses come up to a very clean, fresh water trough and stop first to drink out of a muddy puddle, before drinking and dunking their faces in the trough, I wonder how much that super clean little water source is better for horses than the larger waterers.
I expect there is a place for everything, a different preference for each horse and manager, why there are so many choices out there.
A gentle reminder - with ALL horse/ animal care whichever water plan - auto or bucket or ?
ALWAYS HAVE A BACK-UP PLAN & EQUIPMENT & SUPPLIES in case of a PROBLEM.
Water is essential.
I second the backup plan. Also, my previous barn had Nelson waterers in every stall and one malfunctioned and flooded the entire barn. Just an FYI. I have Nelsons outside and buckets in stalls in the new barn.
We love our Nelsons in the stalls; very durable and easy to maintain. As far as monitoring intake, our horses are outside drinking out of a communal water trough most of the time anyway, so we monitor intake by noting their physical condition, as Manni mentioned.
There is an optional meter for the Nelsons, but it monitors the time the animal has spent drinking, not the amount of water consumed.
I’ve never kept horses anyplace with auto-waterers, so when I built my place, I went with buckets. That said, neither horse that I’ve kept at home has liked drinking out of a regular 5g bucket hung from the wall, so I’ve given up on buckets, too. Now I use a 16g muck tub for water inside the stall. The mare is happy with it, and as the weather gets warmer, she’ll drink it down quickly enough that dumping and scrubbing is no big deal. (Thankfully, she does not poop in her water!)
Auto waterers, with backup buckets on hand if you need to monitor or if your waterers get damaged/frozen/unusable etc. The last place I boarded had waterers in the paddocks and stalls, and my mare loved them. She’s a great drinker so I don’t worry too much about monitoring intake regularly. Right now she has two buckets in her stall at all times and a bucket outside. She drains them daily. If I had my own place and could put in waterers I would choose them in a heartbeat - very time consuming to do buckets every day.
I think the comment about monitoring water intake falls more into play when there is a problem starting or happening and an owner does want to monitor the water intake. Dobbin is acting like he might be a little colicky, did he drink OK last night?
Just one more thing re auto waterers (and sorry about the many posts - it kept saying ‘being reviewed’ or something)
We estimate that in a 25 stall barn and 2 buckets per stall, we save upwards of 50,000 gallons of water a year.
(say dumping 5 gallons a day cleaning X 25 X 365)
And easy enough to turn off ours and see if the level goes down, They have a 5 gallon reservoir.
So are you not cleaning them? I do not get how you come up with that number. If you are dumping 5 gallons per day per horse with hanging buckets how are you not doing that with your autofill buckets when you drain them?
Biggest con to the auto water for me is the cleaning - I need to look into the easy to clean ones mentioned here.
The biggest pro for me is that I don’t have to worry about him playing with the buckets and spilling it all, which he will do…
also in the summer the water is replenished with cool water so he isn’t drinking warm water that has been sitting all day.
If you want to monitor because you’re worried, turn them off or block them and hang a bucket. Easy peasy.
How often does that happen, though? I can think of a single handful of times for my four in the past couple years. Versus the DAILY shore of dealing with buckets or tubs.
@Beethoven if you’re still undecided when you’re running water into the barn, at least rough in for autos. You can decide later 
(I really wish the people who built my barn now had roughed in. I think it would be a huge chore to bring in autos now, SIGH :()
Not sure about Dotneko, but I just swipe my waterers out twice a week with a towl and sometimes a little bleach… takes probably less then 10min for all 8 of them (2 are in the pastures) The nice thing about them is that there is not much water in there if the horse doesnt drink.
Also no problem at all to remove poop if they poop into them.
And if one of my horses is acting weird, I have a switch on each waterer. I turn it off and hang a bucket inside…
I do everything in my barn myself so I do need to reduce my workload and if I watch my neighbors grooms cleaning water buckets everyday I kind of feel confirmed…
My horses lived all their life with this type of waterer and so far I don’t know of any life threatening problems caused by them.
Also I had a polo pony some years ago who drank from buckets all her life. It took her not even a day to switch to my waterers…
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