Since one of my horses likes to play with auto waterers when he is bored, or when one does not refill fast enough, causing a lot of stall flooding, I prefer buckets. That way you can also tell how much water is consumed.
My husband gave me the final ruling today that he is piping them and putting a spigot above where each bucket will go. So, bucket it is as he will be helping me take care of them and he doesn’t mind doing buckets.
I will only have 3 horses max. Well we might build another stall on the other side but we haven’t 100% decided that. The baby goats are going in the middle stall for now.
He told me that he wants to know for sure that the horses are drinking, etc, so he wins. I’m busy with my career so I’m not always around to check on the horses and usually just do morning chores. Yes, he’s the best husband.
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Hmmm - if horses are outside together for 12 hours a day, how do you know how much they are drinking then? Just strikes me as strange to care about it only part of the day.
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That is smart, a good solution.
Now, if you had two dozen horses and staff, maybe automatic waterers would save time and time is money there.
For a few horses, your DH is smart to go that route.
It is no fun to wake up in the middle of the night worried sick and not remember if you checked the automatic waterer in this or that horse at night check.
When you top buckets, you know you did and the horse should have plenty of water all night.
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That’s what I told him too…haha
They live out 24/7 right now with an autowaterer so I am not sure why he care more when they are in the stall. I think his main thing is keeping them clean.
I’m an equine veterinarian so if I don’t know what a hydrated horse is then I am in the wrong field. 
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This is by far my favorite.
Autowaterers are great if everything goes perfect. But there’s a lot that can go wrong. I’ve seen them flood a barn after getting kicked; get turned back on after a few years off and the hay and dust that got onto the heating element nearly caught fire; get a dead bird in it so horse won’t drink (not a problem with 2 water buckets); a horse that won’t drink out of it for personal reasons… I like them for outside use, because you aren’t lugging buckets, but if you’re going to run pipe for an auto waterer, you might as well just have a frost-free hydrant in the same spot?
Using hoses at each stall is soo much easier. If any horse is low on water at any time, it’s super easy to top them off. As the person cleaning the barn, I can dump, scrub, and refill 2 buckets for each of the 14 horses in about 20 minutes. I’ve cleaned stalls with auto waterers, and you can just scrub each one out as you clean and dump the dirty water into your wheelbarrow, and then it refills itself. So in that sense yes it’s easier. But so much can go wrong… I don’t think I could justify the cost.
He’s going to put the handle outside of the stall, though, right? Because inside of the stall above where the bucket will go could easily be MAYHEM if you have a curious horse :lol:
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Haha yes or recess it in as one of my clients has this problem with a horse at her farm. He floods the stall when he is bored.
back in the early 70s the barn I worked at had meters on each of stall’s Nelson waters
I see they still have the meter as an accessory, appears to be part number AAC.WCI-40
Operated by a long-life, replaceable lithium battery. Can be located within 300 ft. of the waterer being monitored. 25 ft. of 20 gauge wire included.
https://www.nelsonmfg.com/livestock-…t/accessories/
The nelson meter does not actually measure the amount of water consumed, it measures the length of time the horse is at the waterer and the amount of water is consumed is calculated using generalizations.
We use a flow meter like this one for our fuel pumps, this one is for water:
http://www.jmesales.com/product/gpi-…FdW1wAodGIULfA
Those go on the water line wherever you want to read it and will tell you the gallons your horse drinks.
We use ours to see how much fuel our pickup, tractors, etc. drink.
I really, really love my Nelsons. They are the best thing I have done for my farm. So reliable and nice!
I do think they save a ton of water. when I clean them out, which I do every day or two, I toss out maybe a gallon of water? from the bowls. I use that water to swish gunk so no extra water needed. When I do buckets, I usually hang 2 buckets and end up tossing 5 gallons per stall or more. That really adds up.
It is part of my routine to at least glance in the auto waterers to make sure they are working when I feed. It takes seconds but then you can be sure they aren’t going more than a few hours without water if something goes wrong.
Two suggestions if you go “auto waterer” – have a backup generator if you have a well because you absolutely need water and there is no reservoir. In summer if I think there is any chance of the power going out, I fill buckets in the wash area, enough to get me thorugh a few days. In winter I rely on the generator because water will just freeze. You also need to keep fuel around to keep the generator going.
Also, be sure that you put each waterer on a separate water shutoff valve (mine are reachable from the top when the top is removed). This can really come in handy if there is a problem – you can shut off the one with the issue without shutting off all your water in the barn. Or if you had a horse that played in the stall, you could turn his off and give him a regular bucket, without having to abandon them all.
It gets very cold here sometimes and the Nelsons have never frozen. I do keep some spare parts around, and it is smart to keep an extra heater on hand if you can.
I won’t use auto waterers in stalls because I can’t keep an eye on how much water the horses are drinking. I will use them in turnouts though, if they’re well enough to be outside with a herd 24/7 then I don’t need to monitor as closely. I work primarily with rescues and really watch the little things while they’re still isolated for health reasons as they’re usually an indication of something brewing. The average/healthy horse would probably manage just fine with an auto in the stall, but not my cup of tea.
Loved my nelsons- I think there are a few kinds now, and will look into them as I will be refurbishing a small (disaster) barn soon. I had them inside and out- if you don’t use your stalls all the time, they might be a pain with birds and dust, otherwise, they are great.
I have never understood the “I want to make sure I know what my horse is drinking” if the horse is turned out with other horses. I watched them come in from my one pasture that had a tank, and drink from the cool, clean nelsons. But then again, I always feed wet feed.
If anyone has installed Nelsons in an existing barn in a cold climate, I’d love to know what’s involved. Don’t mean to derail the thread here, but maybe PM me? It seems like it would be difficult to not only get water into the right place but also get the hole deep enough to tap into that geothermal heat that’s required.
I’d like to know too. So if anyone wants to PM me, please do so.
Though I don’t think the geothermal hole would be that bad. Nelson’s site says only 4-6 feet below the frost line. Where I grew up, we did geothermal holes under a couple water troughs and I want to say we dug 16 feet or so. But then I do believe our frost line was 8 feet or so. I remember water lines were put in at 12. And that geothermal hole was waaaaay down there. I live in a bitter cold area now as well and I think my frost line is only 4 feet or so. So that doesn’t seem bad at all.
It is easy to monitor a horse’s water intake by installing a small inexpensive water meter in the line before it reaches the auto waterer.
I prefer buckets. Years ago before I had my own farm, I boarded at a place that had Nelson automatic water bowls. I arrived one morning a couple of hours after feeding to ride and discovered that my mare had pooped in her waterer and it was not fresh, steaming poop that had been done since breakfast. For all I know, she may have been without water all night. She was very thirsty and I had to walk her for quite a while just giving her sips as we passed a bucket before I felt safe letting her have “free choice” water. The barn wouldn’t let me hang a water bucket in her stall but did allow me to put up a board across the corner of the stall (where the auto waterer was installed) which prevented her from backing up all the way to the waterer so had no problem after that. But I have always preferred to us buckets since then.
Having had horses poop in water buckets and not drink all not and somehow manage to not die (I’m not sure why you’d withhold water at that point there is no medical evidence that it would be harmful?), I don’t think I’d blame the auto system.
If it happened on a regular basis it would be a pain to not be able to move the waterer, but if it only happened once I’d just forget about it.
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@Simkie The Nelson website has some pretty good diagrams on what installation involves.
Like has been posted, they want you to dig a hole approximately 6’ below your frost line for geothermal heating. In a really cold climate a heater is still required in the bowl.
