Watering Holes

Every morning we break up the ice in the animal’s water troughs, and if we’re lucky, it’s a pretty easy task. If enough animals share the same trough, one of them is usually drinking and creating enough movement that the surface doesn’t freeze very hard. However, when it does freeze solid, it’s impossible to break up so we set up another trough and leave the 400-pound ice cube in the pasture until spring.

Getting water to the animals below the ridge has become even simpler. A couple years ago, we engineered a system that brought the pigs fresh water through a series of oversized gravity fed pipes. Because the pipes drained completely after each use, they never froze. At the end of our carefully engineered system was a water trough near the gate where the pigs greet us each morning. We filled the trough daily with fresh clean water, and set up their winter shelter nearby, so they’d never have far to walk.

It worked well enough, and we were very pleased to not be hauling water or hoses in the middle of winter. The pigs, however, were not impressed. They preferred to walk the 100 yards past the trough to the far side of their winter paddock and drink from a muddy spring that comes out of the ground.  The watershed from the ridgeline above provides us with many such springs and “seeps” which come out of the ground at 50 degrees. So far, they haven’t frozen over even in the coldest weather. 

Our engineering feat was pretty clever- but I have to admit that the pig’s solution is far simpler, and who am I to argue? The pigs may not be trainable, but I certainly am, so next winter, I’ll set up their movable shelter closer to their preferred watering hole. Because, as Anne and I have been known to say, “You can lead a pig to water but really, you’d just be wasting your time.”