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Watering the Pigs

July 26th, 2014

I’ve been wanting to buy a button pig waterer for a while now and just got around to ordering it.  I was hoping to rig it up to a barrel attached to the pig house with a big of spouting collecting water from their roof.  We seem to get just enough rain that I could water the pigs without using electric to pump it of our well and without having to lug it up there in 3 gallon watering cans.
pig waterer (1)
My waterer came yesterday and it screws right into one of the bungs on the barrel I was going to use for the project.  This certainly makes my life easier and should hopefully make the project go much more quickly.  We shall see, we’re hoping to having this up & running sometime this week.

Do you have any time/money saving devices in the works for your gardens/animals? 

5 Comments to “Watering the Pigs”
  1. Marina on July 26, 2014 at 9:37 am

    The totally customizable micro drip irrigation system from Drip Depot is a real time, water and money saver.
    I have been using it since the mid 80s in our first garden, and I have never stopped.
    I have 6 raised beds and I made drip lines and spray lines set ups for each bed. They come off a main tube, with a quick connect attachment at each end. A Y connector at the end my hose, and 2 short segments from an old hose, 2 more quick connects and I have a system where I can water my whole garden, 2 beds at a time, in 3 hours, while I weed and plant and so on. When I rotate, the drip line set ups move from bed to bed depending in what I have planted where.
    It is also ideal if you pant new bushes or trees. I planted a lilac hedge, and made a 100′ line with a drip to each bush. I wove the line among the bushes, and would give a good slow overnight watering once a week. It was a hot dry summer, alway tough for new plantings, but after that strong start, they are doing really well and never get watered now.

    Reply to Marina's comment

  2. Nebraska Dave on July 26, 2014 at 1:57 pm

    Susy, you are the first that I’ve heard that has come up with an idea of automated animal watering with rain caught water. Nice idea. You know me. I am the king of automation. It’s been from necessity as gardens don’t fair well here in Nebraska when left unattended for a week or ten days. Invariably, family events will keep me out of the garden for up to ten days at a time at least a couple times during the peak of gardening season. I have pretty much perfected the automation of the Urban Ranch backyard watering system. The rain falls, is stored in the 400 + three 55 gallon drums, is distributed to the plants automatically with rain gutters and float valves. It’s all gravity and mechanical. And, of course, you are totally aware of the natural spring at Terra Nova Gardens that will become a water source for irrigation there. It will most likely be a couple more years before that is fully developed and plans to its development change almost daily. I just today snagged a couple more railroad ties for the spring platform support free from Craig’s list. That makes four which will support the six by eight foot platform situated over the spring solidly.

    Have a great automated pig watering day.

    Reply to Nebraska Dave's comment

  3. sarah on July 26, 2014 at 9:03 pm

    Interesting. I’ve never used rain water for my animals because it tends to get a little funky. Lots of pecan sap on the roofs around here and the water in the barrels ferments after a while.

    Reply to sarah's comment

  4. Erika on July 27, 2014 at 9:27 am

    We just got the Plasson Bell waterer for our chickens. Its fed from a 5 gallon bucket I have mounted on my mobile chicken coop. We only have 9 chickens so the carting of water has been cut down greatly and the waterer stays cleaner than any others my chickens have used. We also just hooked up 4-50 gallon rain barrels to the new barn’s gutters and can now use that water in the garden.
    I like your pig waterer. Where did you get it?

    Reply to Erika's comment

  5. Amy on July 27, 2014 at 9:52 am

    I have read not to use rainwater off the roof on the garden due to possible bacteria from bird droppings and such getting in the water and then sitting in the heat. I do use it on my flowers and scrubs.

    Reply to Amy's comment

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This is a daily journal of my efforts to cultivate a more simple life, through local eating, gardening and so many other things. We used to live in a small suburban neighborhood Ohio but moved to 153 acres in Liberty, Maine in 2012.

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