Calf Creep Water Tubs

Calf Creep Water Tubs LIVESTOCK Dairy 17 This spring we had to find a way to supply water to our baby calves The pastures where we have our cow-calf pairs in the spring and early summer are fenced away from the creek to avoid having a young calf swept away by high water When we first moved onto this ranch in 1967 we lost a couple of calves when cattle tried to cross the raging water in the creek My husband and I fenced off the creek in those pastures to avoid having more calves drown The cattle drink from water troughs instead In the pasture with cow-calf pairs they generally have access to two troughs filled twice daily with a hose One of those troughs is short enough that the calves can reach the water to get a drink but over the years that trough developed some rusted-through holes in the bottom We fixed it once by using mesh over the worst holes and spraying a sealant over the bottom That lasted about 10 years but then the trough started developing holes again which I could initially patch with mud This spring the holes were getting big again and we planned to clean up the bottom of the trough and respray the sealant over the bottom which would be less expensive than buying a new trough The problem was cold weather; we needed some warm days for the sealant to set up While waiting for warm enough weather to patch the trough we made a temporary “calf watering creep” next to the fence near the big water trough for the cows Since one of our horse pens is next to that field there was already electric wire along the top of the fence; we have electric fence along the top rail of all our horse pens to keep them from chewing the fences So setting some short tubs along the fence was a simple solution They can be easily filled with water when I’m watering the cows I used an electric wire and step-in posts to keep the cows away from the tubs Otherwise the cows like to drink from the tubs rub on them and tip them over This has been working nicely The calves are curious and come to check out the tubs sample the water and soon learn to drink from them The cows respect the hot wire and can’t get close enough to the tubs to mess them up The wire is high enough that the calves can easily walk under while the cows stay out of that area Now the calves have plenty of water until we fix the old leaky trough Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Heather Smith Thomas Salmon Idaho

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