DPWaterer.com

• Home
•  » Health Benefits

Livestock Waterer Health Benefits of No Standing Water and No Electricity in Waterers

If you utilize buckets, troughs, a waterer with a float system, or essentially any water source that incorporates standing water in the summer, some of the benefits below will be painfully obvious to you (no scrubbing algae!)

No Standing Water provides the following benefits:

• Good Tasting Algae-Free Water 

• Dramatically Reduces Spread of West Nile Virus

• No Mosquito eggs

• No Algae Build Up Means No More Scrubbing

• No chance for water to become overheated from baking in sun, discouraging water intake during hot summer months.

• Water Delivered Fresh from water supply line at ~50 F Year Round

  • Warm Water in the Winter

  • Cool Water in the Summer

 

As most involved with livestock are aware, nothing has greater influence on the overall well being of horse, cattle, or livestock than water intake.

Water intake in horses, cattle, and livestock affects:

• Sight

• Fluid balance

• Temperature control

• Regulation of sound

• Exercise tolerance

• Milk production

• Lubrication of joints

• Flushing of toxins

• Saliva

• The central nervous system

• Digestibility of feed

Because of this, maximizing water intake year round should be a primary goal in the management of all livestock and animals.

One of the most crucial elements to maximizing water intake of animals is to ensure they have uninhibited access to clean fresh water. 

 

Safety Benefits of Utilizing Non Electric Waterers

It is common sense that not everything works according to plan 100% of the time.  Given this reality, a sensible approach is to minimize risk exposure when sensible.  Eliminating electricity from your watering strategy is an area where this is possible and makes sense:
 

 

 

 

 

Benefits of utilizing a non electric waterer include:

• No electric bill

• Should you experience a power outage in the winter, your animals will still have uninhibited access to fresh, clean, warm water.

• No risk of electric shock. 

  • A leading industry manufacturer of cattle-trough immersion heaters has issued a recall of products sold as recently as 2009 due to a shock risk.

• Water Delivered Fresh from water supply line at ~50 F Year Round

• No risk of fire.

  • Fire risk can stem from electric waterers or heating elements with faulty wiring, defective electric equipment, or misuse/abuse by your animals.

 

Barn fires stemming from the use of electricity in automatic waterers and float or submersible heaters are often tragic and unfortunately a reality of life.  

As you can see in the following excerpts, many respectable sources advise avoiding the use of electricity when possible and/or practical.

 

 “With a floating trough heater “young” or “mouthy” horses will play with them like bath toys, chewing on them or ultimately flipping them our of the trough and onto the ground. Also, because heat rises, this type of heater does not work well on deeper troughs in extremely cold climates. Ice will still form at the lower depths, keeping the overall temperature colder than ideal.

A short in the system could cause the unit to quit working. Worse, it could electrify the water, creating a shocking effect when your horse tries to take a drink….And of course, make sure electrical cords are well out of reach. If a horse chews through an electrical cord, it may be the last thing he ever chews on!” (November 2000 issue of Horse Illustrated)

“Electric water heating coils can pose a problem if they are not attended because once the water has boiled out the coil will continue to heat the bucket, allowing heat to transfer to adjacent materials.  In November of 2000, twenty Standardbreds lost their lives in a fire whose cause was believed to be a portable submersible electric water heater…  Before you add heat—for whatever reason—please carefully consider if it's really necessary.” (http://www.firesafetyinbarns.com/20-electricalapps.html)

 

If you are utilizing a bucket, trough, or any type of reservoir with a heater to keep it free of ice in the winter months; heaters are vulnerable to horse play to some degree.

Drinking Post Waterer offers an alternative to this potential safety hazard.

 

Benefit of not having any standing or stagnant water

Most anyone who has been around troughs long enough has a story of a rodent or bird falling into the water source and dying. This can cause obvious health hazards to all surrounding livestock. A less obvious and more common source of contamination is bird feces. With The Drinking Post horse waterer this is never an issue due to the water source being located three feet off the ground and the fact the there is never any standing water when the waterer is not in use.

Stagnant horse water pictured here.  This situation can discourage adequate water intake.

Stagnant ponds, buckets, and water tanks contaminated with algae or over or under heated water can also discourage healthy water intake. Some algae, specifically blue-green, can be toxic to horses. Most use the rule of thumb that if a natural water source is not fed with flowing water, it’s not suitable for horses to drink.

 

In addition, some ‘fresh’ water sources can contribute to:

• Moonblindness

• Leptospirosis

• Increased possibility of mosquito-borne illnesses (such as West Nile Virus)

If your source of water is from public utilities, it’s safe to assume that it’s regularly monitored. If you pull water from a well, it’s likely that you monitor the quality of this water on your own yearly. Either way, knowing that the quality of water being provided to your livestock is adequate and suitable for consumption is one more step toward ensuring a long healthy life for them.
 
With the increased use of toxic (and ‘non-toxic’) chemicals in the environment, such as pesticides and fertilizers (just to name some of the ‘safe’ ones), providing an unmonitored source for water is a potentially dangerous situation. Is it cause to go off the deep end and test every water source known to man? Probably not, but at the same time, reality is that the equine organism is very sensitive and ingestion of foul water leads to an immediate breakdown in health. For that reason alone, in the long run, it will benefit you and your animals to provide them with a tested and safe source of water.
 

West Nile Virus

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. As most everyone is aware, one of the easiest and most effective ways to prevent mosquito-borne viruses such as West Nile Virus as well as Eastern and Western Equine Encephalitis is prevention of mosquitoes themselves.

One of the most effective methods to deter mosquitoes is to eliminate their breeding grounds, which means eliminating standing water wherever possible.
 
Using traditional watering methods or traditional animal waterers makes this difficult if not impossible. This is where The Drinking Post can help by eliminating 100% of the standing water associated with watering, because there is never any standing water in the bowl when it’s not in use.

Consider these facts:

 

The Center for Disease Control (CDC) website provides a map of the current (and past) years reported cases of West Nile Virus in the United States. To view areas where West Nile Virus has been recorded this year, visit the following website:

http://diseasemaps.usgs.gov/wnv_us_mosquito.html
 
The story is much the same when we look into Canada. Following is a link to the Public Health Agency of Canada that will provide the same information as it relates to Canada:

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/wnv-vwn/mon-hmnsurv_e.html

It’s easy to see that there is no ‘safe’ area when it comes to West Nile Virus. WNV does not have any type of geographical preference. It has been spread across the United States and Canada by migrating birds.

Today anywhere mosquitoes are present, WNV is a real threat.
 
It is wide spread consensus that prevention remains the best practice to follow.

 

What size waterer is most appropriate for your climate and application?

 

Order Now