Water Woes

We keep missing our rainfall and the grass is parched and thirsty.  Today, we had a 65% chance of the wet stuff, but we came out on the short end of the stick and got 0 rainfall at all.  On the north side of our barn, I positioned some water troughs to catch rainwater running off of the barn roof.  Normally, these stay full.  Very rarely do we have to turn on the faucet at our water trough under the pecan tree because they drink out of these three water troughs.

The water troughs are empty.  The cows use this opportunity to push the empty troughs around in the pasture.  I have to stay on my toes and push them buck under the drip line in the event we would catch a surprise shower like we got last week when 0.4 of an inch fell.  They've already finished all the rainwater we caught during that shower.

But there are other water woes.  Nicky, the bull would like to tell you about one that has affected his pasture that we call, "The bullpen."  Lean in close and he'll tell you about it.

Speaking of Nicky, he's little Betsy's father.  He is full of muscle and he's mean.  If you get around him, he's snorting and kicking up dust and making threatening gestures at you with his big old head.  It's time to bring him to the butcher shop and fill our freezer with meat.

I'll get back on topic.  The water woe in the bull pen was noticed a couple of afternoons ago when I looked out and saw a geyser spraying up into the air from the water trough in the bull pen.  I walked out to see that the plastic float valve had broken.  The float valve is very important as it allows the trough to fill until the water level pushes against the float and turns the water off.  This keeps the water from overflowing the trough.  When the plastic piece broke, it allowed water to spray into the air and make a big mud hole around the water trough.  There's no telling how long the water was flowing.

Fortunately, I got a new float valve and installed it.  That process wasn't without adventure.  Fire ants had built a big mound right where I needed to undo the old one and install the new one.  Those fire ants tore me up!  I got it all installed and turned the water back on only to find a leak in the threads.  I was rushing so fast to avoid the ant bites, and I forgot to put the teflon tape around the threads.  I had to go back and do it again!  But this time, I got it right.  No leaks.  It will, however, take a while for the water to soak in to the ground.  It's not good for animal health to have mud holes like this as it is a vector for parasites, mosquitoes and other things that plague good animal health.

I'll Probably Regret it

The Watering Hole

It hasn't rained on the homestead in 3 weeks.  The grass is getting parched.  Here we are a week into June and I've only mowed the yard one time.  The lawn mower has cobwebs on it.  I'd be pulling your leg if I told you that it was only the drought that's kept me from mowing - it's not only the drought.  Each spring I have a little competition to see how long I can go without mowing.  I put up temporary fencing and let the cows cycle through the yard several times.  They do an adequate job of mowing.  My new excuse for not mowing is our honeybees.  Why would I want to chop up all the white dutch clover and other flowers that the pollinators love?  

The photo at the head of this article shows our water trough.  It's really a repurposed molasses tub that I have fitted with a float valve.  It holds about 35 gallons.  Two cows can fit their heads in at one time to drink.  The others must patiently wait their turn.  Do you remember waiting in line to drink from the water hose after a backyard football game?  You'd be so thirsty!  But you would have to let the hose run for a minute until it got cold.  That's the general idea of the water trough.

If you look at the picture, there is shade over the water.  It is peaceful.  A veritable oasis in an otherwise arid land.  If I was of the bovine persuasion, I'd stand there and swish my tail, chew my cud, and take long slow sips of clear water to wash down the fermented grass I was chewing on.  The water hole is a sacred spot.  When cows are drinking, I never want to disturb them or rush them.  Lots of important things happen by the 'well.'  In the Bible, the woman at the well experienced a life changing event.  She found living water at that well and never thirsted again.

You'll notice the nice shade over the blue tub of water.  It wasn't always there.  I am big on planting trees.  A fox squirrel buried a pecan one year and forgot where he buried it in our yard.  It grew.  I transplanted it in a pot and then planted it at the corner of the pasture and the garden.  Now that I think about it, I didn't think that all the way through.  The tree has grown.  It does cast nice shade over the water hole.  There are some downsides, though.  The tree will send out roots that will compete with the vegetables for rainwater.  The shade will, later on, cast shade over the garden, blocking out sunlight.  

I'll probably regret it.  But at the same time, the cows enjoy the shade.

“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.” — Greek Proverb

The Water Trough

On a hot summer day, there is nothing as satisfying as a nice, long drink of cool water.  I can remember as a kid playing in the yard.  We'd be all sweaty and stinking like little puppies.  We would line up at the water spigot and someone would turn on the water hose.  This was an exercise in patience as you would have to wait for the water to cool off.  The water that was in the hose was scalding hot from the sun and unfit to drink.  

However, as they say, "Good things come to they that wait."  The person at the head of the line would be rewarded for their patience.  Soon cool water flowed from the end of the water hose.  You could drink and drink and drink.  It was so refreshing!  Pretty soon, though, the next guy in line would nudge you and let you know it was his turn.

Animals enjoy lining up for water, too.  August 22, 2021 was an important date at the Our Maker's Acres watering hole.  Today was the first day this year that I turned on the water valve to allow water to flow to fill the trough.  All year I've refilled the trough with rain water that we captured from our rainwater catchment barrels.  We have barrels that can catch about 500 gallons of rainwater off the dripline of our roof.  This doesn't count the 730 gallons we can catch off our our barn in the back.  Up until today, rainwater provided all water for the animals.  That shows how much it has rained so far this year.  

Here is the water trough.  The small one is for the chickens.  The big one is for the cows and goats.  There is a valve so that it doesn't overfill.  Looks like a peaceful place to drink, doesn't it?

I potted and replanted a pecan tree near the water trough to provide the animals some much needed shade while they drink.  

I like to watch the cows when they come walking up to drink water.  They are panting heavily.  They don't do well with the extreme heat.  They dip their nose into the water.  They drink much differently than a dog or a cat.  They don't lap it up with their tongues.  Cows slowly take deep gulps, drawing water into their mouth.  You can watch their throats as large volumes of water go down.  The cows are happy, peaceful and refreshed.

It is amazing to watch the water level go down as they drink and the valve turns on to refill the trough.  How much do they drink?  Estimates vary, but I did read that there are many variables, but a dry cow should drink 9 - 12 gallons a day and a lactating cow should drink 30 - 40 gallons day.  Amazing!!

Springing a Leak

This is the scene that greeted me Saturday morning as I walked out to the barn to milk Rosie and Clarabelle.  All this water was not due to rain.  Not good.

I milked as fast as I could so I could go assess what the problem was.  I began thinking, "Maybe a pipe burst?" or "Maybe the cows hit the valve with their heads, causing the water to continuously flow?"  The water covered the south pasture, flowing south then west, saturating the grass.  From the looks of things, it must have been flowing wide-open all night long.

I turned off the water valve to stop the flow.  As I walked up to the water trough, it became evident what the problem was.  The water valve was firmly in place.  As you can see, the level of the water in the trough was beneath the valve.  This told me all I needed to know.  I know what my problem is.

And there you have it.  Look at the bottom of the water trough.  The trough has sprung leaks, and this has flooded the pasture and made a huge muddy mess.


I'm drawing my line in the sand.  No more Rubbermaid water troughs for us.  This is the second one I've purchased and both of them sprang leaks in roughly the same place.  Rubbermaid is a fine company, and we've used other consumer products that they've manufactured with no issue.  But I will definitely stay away from their water troughs.  I've thrown $89 twice at an inferior product and won't do it again.

For the time being, I'll go back to using some mineral tubs as water troughs.  I will try to rig it up so that it has the water valve attached.  What I've learned in the past is that when the cows drink it down, they'll push the empty tub with their heads and break it.

If I get tired of using these temporary tubs as water troughs and want a more permanent solution, I'll opt for the oval galvanized water troughs.

Chickens Can't Tread Water

We have three water troughs for the animals on Our Maker's Acres Family Farm.  Animals require a lot of clean, fresh water - especially in the summer and especially if the cows are in milk.  Watching cows drink water at the trough is interesting.  They dip their mouth in the water and you can see their nostrils flare out.  Then they drink in large amounts and you can see their throats move as you see the level in the water trough going down.  To the best of my estimation, each cow drinks about 20 gallons a day, depending on the season and if they are lactating.

This water trough has a float valve.  When the water level goes down slightly, the float drops and the valve is opened, allowing fresh water to fill the trough until the float rises, shutting off the water.  The cows and goats primarily drink here.  We have a smaller trough for chickens, but some chickens do fly up, sit on the rim and drink water.

I have two similar water troughs that sit right under the drip lines on the north and south sides of the barn.  They are not attached to any water line, but are filled by rainwater running off the barn.  A two inch rain can easily fill them both up.  Since installing these troughs, they have become the favorite watering hole of choice to the cows.  As they leave the barn, they conveniently walk up to the troughs and slowly drink their fill.

There is one downside to these troughs.  They can be a death-trap for chickens.  We have to be on our toes and check the water troughs each time we go out to the barn.  Sometimes, however, we find a scene like you see below.

That's a barred rock hen floating in the trough - very dead.  It's easy to re-create events leading to her demise.  She was thirsty and didn't want to walk to the trough in front that has water filled to the top.  She flew up to the rim of the water trough and sat on the edge.  She noticed that the water level was low, but figured, "I'll just crane my neck down a bit and drink."

While reaching down to drink, she lost her balance and fell into the water, soaking her wings.  She struggled to try to fly out of the water, to no avail.  Chickens can't tread water, but she didn't die of drowning.  She died of hypothermia.  After sitting in the water, her body temperature began to fall.  She became confused and disoriented and began to shiver.  When no help arrived, she died.  We've been able to save them from time to time by taking them out of the water and putting them in a bucket with a heat lamp.  The lamp dries out their feathers and warms them up.  After just a few minutes the chicken is good to go.

Sadly, in this case, we weren't able to save her.  I brought her to the garden and buried her.  I re-doubled my efforts in checking the two water troughs for wayward hens.  I don't like losing animals.  So far, so good. 

A Walk Back to the Barn In Late August

It's late August and it's very hot and humid.  The mosquitoes are thicker than I've ever seen 'em.  Every animal and human on our little farm is looking forward to fall.  It is about a 150 foot walk back to the barn.  As I walk out in the afternoon, I see a very familiar sight - the cows and chickens are laid up under the shade of the pecan and oak trees.  They'll go out and eat grass in the early morning and then they'll stay in the tree's shade out in the pasture until the sun's course in the sky is overhead and eliminates any shade.  When the shade disappears, the cows head back to the always shady area on the southeastern side of the property.  They'll sit there and pant until the late afternoon.  Then they'll head back out to eat grass when the setting sun casts long shadows.

At this time in the season, the grass is diverting energy toward producing seed heads.  As a result, the grass is less nutritious.  This coupled with the fact that it is just too darn hot for them to eat grass all day has resulted in the cows all have lost some weight.  They'll be okay, though. 

I began to think about fall/winter feeding.  We have around 90 square bales in the barn.  I called the farmer that supplies us with round bales to reserve round bales this fall/winter/spring.  We keep records that show that last year, we used 24 round bales.  I reserved at least that much for this year.  In December, we'll put out a round bale and keep one on hand for them at all times until the latter part of April.

Back in the barnyard, I threw some henscratch to the hens and they begin scratching and eating.  Our flock is getting old.  A couple of years ago, we had over 100 in total when we captured them in the barn and counted them one by one.  We've lost some to old age since then.  I'd estimate that we have about 90 hens now.  In the past, I'd add about a dozen new pullets each year to replace those that died during the year.   We haven't added any new ones in a couple of years.  The hens (mostly) lay their eggs in the red hen house.  Benjamin would always collect the eggs and package them, but since he's  gone off to college, Tricia and I gather them each day, wash dirty ones, and put into cartons.

In the photo above, you can see a new addition to the barnyard - we moved a trough inside the corral.  The water trough is positioned where it catches rainwater off the barn roof.  We watched during a short rainstorm this weekend in which 5 inches of water was quickly collected from the run-off.  This is a good development as the calves are kept in the corral all night and it wasn't efficient to fill water buckets every night. 

Water Everywhere!

The water trough in the bull pen has been a source of trouble for us lately.  First, the baby goats have been sticking their heads through the 4X4 hogwire to drink water and have been getting their heads stuck in the fence due to their horns.  Tricia was having to go out several times a day to rescue the goats.  They aren't very bright.  They wouldn't learn a lesson.  Using a chicken wire frame that was part of an old brooder and a rusty piece of corrugated tin, I built a temporary barrier that has kept the kids out of the bulls' water trough and thus, out of trouble.

Just when I thought I had it all figured out, I come home to what you see above.  Nope, it didn't rain.  The bull named Astro (because he was born on the night that the Astros won game 6 in the World Series),used his head to knock the float valve out of the trough.  The float valve is fastened to the trough with some wing-nut bolts.  After the bull drinks, the water automatically fills until the float valve closes and stops the water flow.  Bulls are notorious for rubbing their heads on everything and apparently he rubbed on the float valve until it was loosened.  Then he hit it with his head until it was laying on the ground with the water running wide open.  All day long!

We weren't home today as we were moving Benjamin into his college dormitory.  When we came home, we found this.  The water must have run all day as the pasture is flooded all the way to the fence toward the south and west.  I hate to see our water bill this month!  I quickly put the valve assembly back on the trough to stop the water.

Astro stood there in the mud seemingly proud of his handiwork.  I was not too impressed.

Bulls are just a nuisance to have on our little pasture.  When they get this age, they begin using their heads to destroy anything in the pasture.  Unfortunately, this also means us!  They will come up to us, lowering their heads and will push us or hit us.  Today while putting the float valve on the trough, Astro came up behind me and rammed me with his head.  I had to hit him in the nose to make him stop.  Then I yelled for Tricia to distract him by feeding him some sweet feed so that I could re-affix the valve to the trough.  We not only have Astro, but we have Aussie and Clarabull.  Astro's mischief today made me all the more determined to go ahead and get an appointment scheduled for him at the slaughterhouse.

We were previously waiting until the quality of the grass diminishes before sending him, but I believe we'll go ahead and take him.  He's plenty fattened up.  Then we'll move Aussie and Clarabull into the 'bull pen' and wean them both.

New Water Trough for the Animals

"Watch the little things.  A small leak will sink a great ship." - Benjamin Franklin

This is my 51st summer.  Although I still feel relatively young, increasingly I'm feeling my limitations.  Things that used to be easy to do, require more effort.  The other day I looked at a photo of a strange guy with gray hair posing for a picture with my wife and kids.  Then I realized it was me!  I'm witnessing the Second Law of Thermodynamics at work.  Things move from a state of order to disorder.  Everything is deteriorating.  Sad!

Our old water trough is not exempt.  We have a 150 gallon water trough that was given to us by a dear friend.  It is quite old, but has served us admirably over the past years.  Oh, it sprang a leak or three, but I patched the cracks with JB Water Weld and the leak sealed up nicely.  You can see the numerous places I've patched it over the years.

We had a hard freeze this winter.  Then as it got warmer, I noticed one day a constant drip, drip drip from the water trough.  It kept the ground muddy around the trough.  As the cows came daily to drink, they would carry off mud in their hooves.  Soon, there was a hole around the trough that collected water and the cycle repeated itself.  This is not good.  Muddy conditions are good spots for bacteria to grow.  I emptied the trough and dried it up and patched it and then refilled with water.  Still leaking!  I drained it again and found two new cracks right at the bottom.

Time for a new trough.  With a water valve on the trough, I figured that I could reduce trough capacity from 150 gallons to 100 gallons and still provide more than enough water for my cows, goats and chickens.  The birds like to fly to the edge and drink.  Sometimes they'll fall in and need rescuing.

I got the new trough at Tractor Supply. It was priced $84.99, but I had a 10% Neighbor's coupon.  Pleased with my savings, I promptly spent a fraction of the savings on an Old Fashioned Coconut Slice Candy bar to enjoy on the way home.  You know the one?  It is pink (strawberry), brown (chocolate), and white (vanilla).

I got the new trough leveled, piped and installed.  I'm hoping to get many years out of it. 

A Casualty to the Freeze

During the latest cold weather that we've been talking about, we've heard about many people that had broken pipes.  We just aren't prepared for that kind of stuff down here.  Fortunately, we didn't have any broken pipes of dead fruit trees.  But we did have problems with our main water trough.  After the freeze, I noticed that the trough was leaking from a place that had previously been patched with an epoxy resin fiberglass repair kit.  But after the freeze, drip, drip, drip...  I assume that the thick ice perhaps stretched the sides of the trough and ruptured the seal of the epoxy resin that had previously held for years.  Suddenly, I had a muddy mess and an empty water trough!

But I think it can be fixed!  I bucketed out the sludge and leaves from the bottom of the trough and moved it into a blue tub and scattered it in the garden.  I cleaned all the algae off of the sides of the trough and let the sides dry.  Here is a close-up of the two places on the outside where the trough was leaking.  I'll  leave that in place.  I'll concentrate on removing the epoxy resin fiberglass patches from the inside of the tank, cleaning the area and then roughing it up with some sandpaper.

Then I'll apply some JB Weld Water Weld.  It costs about $6.50 for a 2 ounce tube.  I have used this before and am sold on the product.  It works!  It is a putty that you simply roll into a ball.  A chemical reaction occurs when the putty on the inside mixes with the outside and then you press the putty over the cracked area that is causing the water leak.  It sets up in 15-20 minutes and then has a 1 hour curing time.  You can see the two areas where I affixed the JB Weld Water Weld.

In about an hour and a half, I began to fill the trough with water.  Time to see if we did any good.

As the water began to fill and cover the places where the trough was leaking, it was time to start checking the exterior for leaks.

When it got completely full, I inspected the area that was previously continuously dripping water.  Not a smidgeon of water!  It was as dry as the Sahara Desert.

I highly recommend JB Weld Water Weld. 

The Cold Came Around And Our Internet Went Down

So it got a little cold for us beginning on Monday.  The temperatures dipped down to about 20 degrees.  That is chilly for us southerners!  We stayed by the fireplace in the evening and then noticed that the internet was down, so I was unable to post last night.  I guess the hamsters turning the wheels of the Internet froze, but they thawed them out and things are back up and running today. 

This morning we got up to milk the cows.  It was cold.  The mud was frozen and the cows did not have a clue of how to walk on it.  Once milking was done, I walked over to one of the frozen water troughs and used a piece of a 1x2 to try to break the ice.  No luck!  The board bounced off of the ice.  Time to call in the heavy artillery.  I got a sledge hammer from my work bench and returned to bust the ice.  The cows need some liquid water.

Frozen!

I hit one time and the hammer glanced off the ice, leaving the type of scar that your windshield gets when you are following a truck that throws a rock.

Time to stop playing around.  I gave the ice a good "whack" and the ice began to break up.  But wow, how thick is the ice?

Clarabelle immediately came and began drinking water.  You could tell that she was uneasy with the ice in her trough.  As she drank, the ice tinkled together.  Pretty soon the other cows came to drink and I began to break the ice in the chicken's water trough and then the goat's.

So how thick was the ice in the trough?  Well, I went to get my tape measure to get an accurate measurement.  It was 2 inches thick!

I've seen water trough de-icers sold in the Jeffer's catalog and the Farm-tek catalog, but these frigid conditions happen so rarely in Louisiana, that I think the sledge hammer is a more economical option.

You Can Lead a Bull to Water, But You Can't Stop Him From Breaking the Water Trough

From about July - December, we kept our bull, Chuck, and our little buckling, Buckwheat, in a fenced off area that we call the "bullpen."  We wanted to keep the boys away from the girls, if you know what I mean.  Now is the time that we'd like Chuck to breed Daisy, Rosie, and Clarabelle, but Luna is too young to be bred.  So in order to effectively manage this, we put Luna in the bullpen and simply allow the bull to have access to both cows and heifer that we want bred.  We've seen some activity, but are unsure if breeding was successful.  We should know shortly.

One bad things about bulls is that they love to rub their heads.  They rub their heads on posts, on people, and on any other object they can find.  Unfortunately, they can be very rough and destructive to your property (or your body).  Take for instance the photo below.  This mud hole looks like pigs would be running around in it, but we have no pigs.  What we do have is a bull that rubbed the water trough with his head until he broke the bucket.  I placed one bucket nested in another one and the bull broke that one too.

Water would leak out and create a big mess that never dried up.  This is a management problem as it is a perfect breeding ground for parasites.  I don't want Luna standing in all that muck to drink water.

The bull broke the bucket and made a huge mess

So I went to the feed store and picked out a 50 gallon fiberglass water trough made by Rubbermade.  I think it set me back about $69 bucks.  That's okay, though.  It appears to be tough and durable and this spring when we put the bull back in the bullpen, he won't be able to break this one with his head.

Right now I'm supplying the water by water hose.  The hose runs about 70 feed from a spigot at the barn.  My plans are to run some pvc pipe underground to supply the new trough with water.  I will als put a float valve in it to keep this trough automatically filled up.  As you can also see, I've moved the new water trough out of the mud hole.  The trough is short enough where the goats should have no problem drinking from it.  This should make all the animals happy - except the bull, of course.

Curious Luna came down the chute wondering what we were doing.  She was sloshing through the mud and the muck.  I felt sorry for her.

While we were at the feed store, we picked up a salt/mineral block for Luna to lick on. I think it costed $6.99.  Luna promptly went and began licking on it.  Her pinkish colored nose from licking it made her look funny!  I placed the lick in a flat tub with plenty of holes drilled in it to allow rainwater to flow out of the tub.

Salt Lick

Luna of course can't speak English, so we are not sure what she is trying to tell us, but because I have some hearing problems due to not wearing ear protection, I am pretty good at reading lips.  I am pretty sure by reading her lips, that Luna is expressing her thankfulness for her new water trough and salt lick.  Her face was all pinkish color, letting me know that she had found the salt/mineral lick.  I licked it just to see what it tasted like.  Pretty salty... No wonder she's at the water trough now.

Your welcome, Luna.  Now if I could just keep that bull from destroying everything he comes into contact with.

Can a Chicken Get Hypothermia?

Saturday morning before milking, I went about the normal chores, feeding all the other animals, switching the cows from one paddock to a fresh one.  Then I went about checking water troughs, ensuring that they were all filled with water.  We have one main 150 gallon water trough and have two 'makeshift' 30 gallon water troughs made with old molasses/mineral tubs.

As I walk by one, I noticed that it was about 3/4 full, but then stopped suddenly. There was a chicken floating in it!  At first I thought she was dead, but once I removed her from the water, I could tell that she was still barely alive, although her eyes weren't opened.  She was shaking and barely able to stand.  I sat her in the sunshine while we milked the cows, hoping to warm her up.  Chickens aren't too smart.  They fly up ungracefully to the edge of the water trough to get a drink, lean over to drink and some inevitably fall in and die if you don't get to them quickly enough.

I'm no veterinarian, but I would assume that the barred rock hen was suffering from hypothermia. Hypothermia is the condition of having an abnormally low body temperature, typically one that is dangerously low.  This can happen even in warm weather.  Trouble is, about twenty minutes later, once we finished milking, she was not any better.  I knew we must get her some medical attention to save her life.  Fortunately, the doctor was in.  I put the pitiful creature into an empty molasses tub and brought her into the garage.

"Give me your huddled masses..."

I positioned a heat lamp approximately 18 inches above the hen.  I didn't want it to be too close to her as it would burn her and warm her up too fast.  I didn't want it to be too far away though or it wouldn't warm her up.  Up to this point, I wasn't sure if Sally HennyPenny was going to make it.  I had another project going in the garage as we were painting the walls, so I kept a close eye on her.  In about 10 minutes, I checked in and the old gal was looking a little more perky than before.  Still a little wet, but I knew she'd make it.

Heatin' up some chicken

In ten more minutes, she wasn't hunched over shivering anymore and her eyes were wide open.

In about ten more minutes, I heard a big commotion and the hen flew up out of the tub with the heat lamp and was scurrying around the garage.  I caught the old girl and walked her back outside toward the pasture fence.  I set her down on the bridge to make sure she was good to go and yes, she was.

Her buddies were in the muddy waiting room across the fence waiting for her and they were happy she had recovered from her close call.

Birds of a feather flock together

Hopefully, old gal will have learned a lesson and won't fall in the water trough again. We've just had 21 inches of rain in a week's time.  There's plenty of water still on the ground.  She doesn't need to even go to the water trough to drink.  I can't figure out her thinking there, but... she's a chicken. Fortunately the lifeguard got to her in time and performed emergency medical services promptly so that she'll live to see another day and lay more eggs.

Fixing A Leak in the Water Trough With a New Product (For Us)

The water trough for the cows sits in a corner of the pasture.  A curious thing happens around water troughs.  When it rains or water overflows from the trough, it creates mud around the circumference of the tank.  Over time as cows gather around the tank to drink, mud gets between their hooves and they carry it off where it gets displaced in other areas of the pasture.  As that process repeats itself over the years, a hole or sunken depression is formed around the trough.

Low lying, muddy areas are not good for livestock.  They provide a great environment for bacteria to grow that can weaken or sicken your livestock.  Then, it is just unsightly to have a mud hole in the pasture.  I decided to do something about the eyesore, so I drained out the water trough, cleaned it and moved it out of the way.  Then we pulled in a load of dirt and built up the area, packed the dirt, and moved the water trough back in place and filled it with water.

Upon re-filling the trough, I noticed an issue that requires fixing - several leaks in the bottom.  The drip, drip, dripping over the course of the day was threatening to create another mud hole in the very place I had just fixed.  If you look closely, below you can see the fiberglass patching I used to fix this leak a while back and it lasted for quite a while.  Well, the leak has returned, and I'm assuming that when I emptied the trough and it dried out, the patching on the inside of the tank separated from the cracks it once covered.

Leaking water trough

I drained the water (again) and let the sun dry out the inside.  A quick tug released the fiberglass patching that was on the the inside.

Previous patch

I cleaned up the area where the stress fractures exist in the bottom of the trough. You can see the crack running horizontally where the bottom meets the sides.  I was going to use some more fiberglass patching, but then I remembered an advertisement of a spray on product I saw on TV for patching leaky boats.  It cost $19.99 a can, but after researching, I couldn't get any assurance that it was safe for drinking water.

In looking around, I found a product called WaterWeld, by J-B Weld that seemed perfectly suited for this situation.  In fact, it says on the label below: "Great for Potable Water Tanks."  I've used J-B Weld before (but not WaterWeld) and always thought it was a great product.  I think I paid $5.87 for the 2 ounce package below. 

WaterWeld

Application is simple.  You simply break off the amount that you need and knead it around in your fingers until the color is consistent, mixing the white color with the grey color product that is in the middle of the tube.  It has the consistency of a putty, but it begins to harden after a short while, so once you mix it, you need to be ready to apply it.

Kneading the 'dough'

Then, you just press in the putty, covering the crack, ensuring that the entire area has been coated.  

Applying WaterWeld over the cracks in the trough

The package said the set time is 20 minutes and it cures in an hour.  I performed the fix at around 8 pm at night and I wanted to be doubly sure that it hardened, so I let it cure overnight.  The first thing in the morning, at around 5:45 am, I turned on the hose and refilled the tank.  You can see the white WaterWeld patch at the bottom.

Filling the trough with water

And now for the test to see if the patching stopped the leaks.  I waited for a full day after filling the trough with water.  Annndddd....  No leaks!! Where the water was dripping from the bottom onto the wood prior to patching, now there are no more leaks.

The patching held

So far patching the leaking water trough with J-B Weld WaterWeld seems like a great success.  Only time will tell if it will hold for the duration, but the application was easy, quick, and put an end to the leaky trough.