Licking Snow

[SCS]

We have done swath grazing since 94, first in the area, so we were living on the edge. Licking and eating snow is what they do.

Oct. 20 we get a foot of wet snow and much more since.

Last Thursday get a call cattle broke through ice on slough. After some tense moments, seeing one heifer drown and another on two lariots tied together and can't get her out, back tractor and shedder in to pull and drop it through. My what a day, phone local shop and his two sons and a neighbor brought 100 feet of rope and got her out. Rolled her into bucket, lifted her and rolled the very cold heifer into our cattle trailor and hauled her home. After this we went back to find two more heifers in water but they did get out on their own.

As we moved them to a new field, we discover half of them were in the drink that day.

Lucky we only lost one of sixty bred heifers.

Point of interest is they have been on that field for thirty days and last Thursday was the first time they did this!

SCS

[wd40]

Your very blessd. My dad and neighbor lost 15 head out of 30 when I was a kid.

[ALLFARMER]

In my opinion licking snow yes does work but
supplied water is best. Our local vet is against
snow as the only water source. She says water is
one of the biggest nutrients for life...so.

We keep bales around our water supply dugout all
winter in the case they get out. Pretty cheap one
time insurance. Round straw bales store for years
we will one of these years replace them with new.

We also have lost on a animal in winter that was
on ice (creek). We now use a old baler belt with
holes drilled in it that we bolt together around an
animal. It works just like a belt on a person.
Having our own cat dozer with a winch on it is
handy. But then there's guys on this site who like
to farm with no equipment aka tools.

[kato]

Ours drink from the creek until it freezes, then they come to the yard for water. Our creek is only about a foot deep and runs fast, so it lasts quite a while before it freezes. Grazing corn is pretty high powered stuff to rely on snow as a liquid source.

Many many years ago, when we were young and poor (poorer?), we used to chop a hole in the dugout for our little group of calves to drink out of. This hole was only about a foot across, but one day a 300 pound steer got pushed in head first, and broke a big enough hole to fall right into. Hubby was there when it happened, and being a young strong strapping guy, he grabbed the steer by the tail and pulled him out. It was 30 below, and the calf froze instantly. Being young and poor, of course we had nowhere to put him to thaw out, and he ended up being dragged to the house and down the basement stairs. We couldn't afford to lose him, so we did what we had to. We covered him in blankets, and left him to thaw out.

All went well, he didn't even freeze his ears. However.... the next morning we had a lively 300 pound steer hiding by the furnace with no intention of climbing back up the basement stairs! It took some ropes, a halter and several big guys to muscle him up the stairs, through the kitchen, and back outside.

Yup.. it's water bowls for us.. LOL

[tweaker101]

Years ago when we moved to a different farm my Dad used to water out cattle on a dugout by using an axe and making a hole...used to give the shivers being out there with a bunch of 1400lb charolais cows....thank God we got water bowls the next winter, I would rather take fight/fix water bowls every day than water cows on dugouts...LOL. As I sit here typing out this reply I am thinking of our dugouts that we have and that the cows still could go out on if they wanted to...note to self...fence them off next summer.

[grassfarmer]

SCS, sounds like you just got unlucky and somebody
"found" the water accidentally. Do you think having
plenty snow maybe hid the slough from them
compared to previous years?

[smcgrath76]

We haven't had that issue with sloughs
here, and all of our dugouts are fenced
(most sloughs as well). I would prefer
our cows eat snow rather than cutting ice
simply for the safety reasons. I know
some folks that use portable solar outfits
above ground out of dugouts with good
luck, although I think the wet wells look
pretty slick to me.

[ASRG]

How much does it cost to run a cattle waterer? How much aggravation with froze up bowls?
I don't have any waterers, but do have flowing springs that never freeze over. I consider them more valuable than the land itself. The main one is 34 gallons/minute.
I have a large dam below these springs(fenced) with an excellent gravelled road to it and 32 foot steel gates. Oil companies can haul out it almost constantly without taking it down.

[kato]

We picked up a couple of Ritchie energy free waterers this summer at a sale. The first one is installed, and seems to work pretty well so far. We'll see how it does when it really gets cold, but so far so good. The only power it takes is a heat tape down the water line, and it has a small backup immersion heater installed for emergencies.

If it works as well as it looks like it's going to, there will be more to follow it.

[tweaker101]

We have a couple of old Ritchie water troughs...like late 1970 models, I rebuilt them after the first winter of being at this farm as they worked but were in rough shape. I actually ended up putting in new insulation inside them..p2000 I think is what it was called,its aluminum covered styrophom?...has a r-value of like 40 and we put in the heat tape inside the pipe like Kato did. I also installed a 100 watt light bulb inside there aswell so that if I have to work on it when I get home from work I can atleast see and also as a additonal heat source if a element goes. I also put in a home made heat tube...14" plastic culvert in the ground with the water line running up inside of it underneath the water trough...was thinking that the ground has heat and heat should rise. Our system seems to work very well and todate we have never used the internal heat tape on the one water bowl. About what it costs to run? not sure but I can say after we did the changes the power bill went down. I would like to get a energy free trough next summer so Kato let us know how yours works out in real farm situations.

[kato]

We put the heat tape down the hole mainly because we weren't interested in digging it all up just to increase the diameter. The directions call for a pretty large diameter culvert/pipe thingy in order to use the ground heat to keep it from freezing, but ours was only about a 6" pipe. So heat tape it is.

I'm not sure how much it's going to change our hydro bill, because we've got three other conventional waterers as well. I do know they use the power, that's for sure. I know we're going to save money, but spread over four waterers, it may not be so obvious right away. Once we replace them all, then it's going to show up more easily.

It didn't take the cows long to figure out that there was water under those blue floats, but it was funny to see them all standing around in a group fooling around with them. It was like office workers at the water dispenser.

[forage]

Isn't there a old saying that the only way not to lose cows is don't own any.If there is anything that can go wrong a cow well find a way to get herself in that circumstance. If memory serves me right a rancher in the east country lost 30 head or more when the herd moved into high banked dugout durring a winter storm using it as wind break and of course the ice gave way drowning a majority and the remaining ones were covered over by drifting snow and suficated. Would have paid to fence these dugouts. But sorry for your loss ,just lucky you only lost one.

[ALLFARMER]

Anyone using cowcrete concrete watering bowls?
Thinking of putting in a few next year.

[smcgrath76]

We looked at them when we rebuilt waterers
here, but went with recycled tire troughs
from Marwayne. Look on Kijiji as they
sometimes show up for less.
I have heard good things about those
trough and bad about the elements. We
really like the tires.

[forage]

I would not recommend them, I have the large blue one for the main winter water supply. Problems with every thing you can imagine .Only 4 years old and numerous stress cracks, elements cann't keep up to cold weather,the electric board completely had to be replaced. I know that as soon as we have to lift it up to replace it ,the complete unit well split in two. Inorder to lift you have to tread in 2 U-bolts and the stress fracks are naturally right at holes for the bolts. Before you purchase one take a good look were the lift points are and one you lift it to load and lift to place on your pad well be about the last time you well be able to work with it. For ever chopping out the ice from blow. Works great for watering alot of cattle at a time durring the summer but winter is your problem.