A Comment on Automatic Waterers
Stainless steel, simple to clean, automatically heat the water to well above freezing, little maintainance, much relief in terms of convenience. Oh, how I miss my waterers. With the brutally cold winter that has washed through the Midwest, the danged spigot attached to the underground pipes froze, and inhibited water from flowing to the waterers, thus forcing me to turn them off. And I feel for my poor alpacas. Back to drinking out of buckets of water that tend to ice over at night; at least until I get the water supply lines fixed! My advice ~ put your waterers on seperate water lines, or take special care to install your spigots to resist these cold snaps! The water supply has never frozen since I've put it in, but this is an extremely cold winter... it brings be back to why I put these in...
It was winter a few years back, a really bad ice storm came through, it was really, really cold. Hoses were not working at all, of course, and the only way I could get the buckets to stop from freezing over was to add hot water to the buckets whenever I filled them, despite the heaters in the buckets; which only kept the water slushy! Hot water, something I only had in the house, was down the hill about 200 feet... an eternity of crawling, when the ice on the ground is four inches thick! Hauling five gallon jugs, two at a time, up the hill; three trips every three hours; I ended up with pneumonia that lasted a month. At least this time, minus the ice, we can get water up to the barn in the Gator!
So it turns out that the waterers have been absolutely wonderful for when its really cold. The water they drink doesn't freeze them from the inside out, and talk about piece of mind on cold nights! And on the other hand, in the summers, the metal containers seem to keep the water cool. Most importantly, one of the easiest things that you can do to ensure a happy, healthy herd is to provide them plenty of clean water. Waterers are very much worth it! Just make certain that you install them properly to gain their full benefit.
Rob Long
1/25/10
It was winter a few years back, a really bad ice storm came through, it was really, really cold. Hoses were not working at all, of course, and the only way I could get the buckets to stop from freezing over was to add hot water to the buckets whenever I filled them, despite the heaters in the buckets; which only kept the water slushy! Hot water, something I only had in the house, was down the hill about 200 feet... an eternity of crawling, when the ice on the ground is four inches thick! Hauling five gallon jugs, two at a time, up the hill; three trips every three hours; I ended up with pneumonia that lasted a month. At least this time, minus the ice, we can get water up to the barn in the Gator!
So it turns out that the waterers have been absolutely wonderful for when its really cold. The water they drink doesn't freeze them from the inside out, and talk about piece of mind on cold nights! And on the other hand, in the summers, the metal containers seem to keep the water cool. Most importantly, one of the easiest things that you can do to ensure a happy, healthy herd is to provide them plenty of clean water. Waterers are very much worth it! Just make certain that you install them properly to gain their full benefit.
Rob Long
1/25/10