Automatic Drinkers Vs Buckets

[MillionDollar]

Some of you may know that i'm currently in the process of starting up a livery yard mainly for DIY (hence the many questions, lol).

Personally i prefer buckets for water rather than automatic drinkers coz its easier to keep clean, you can monitor how much the horse is drinking and some horses don't like automatic drinkers.

My question is would you prefer an automatic drinker or for you to use buckets at a DIY livery yard??

Any opinions much appreciated!

 

[gemma1992]

I personally find all the auto ones I've had leak. Therefore I personally would prefer buckets.

 

[clipclop]

Oooh see I am 50/50 on this.

Would be labour saving to have the drinkers. But, on the other hand it is always good to know how much your horse is drinking.

Mind you, you don't know how much your horse drinks whilst out in the field? So the monitoring water intake thing is probably just something we are used to doing.

I know a few yards that have automatic drinkers and all the horses are alive and everything??

Sorry, just my sad excuse for a sense of humour

Cx

 

[Oaksflight]

We have autos where I keep mine, they're wonderful, don't leak, horses seem fine with them, and best of all, even the troughs in the fields are automatic too. Only downside really is don't know how much the horses are drinking, however can put lid over so use buckets if need be. And the pipes are insulated!

 

[lordflynn]

was always against automatic waterers for the reasons you stated. However, they now have them at the livery yard and I am a bit of a convert. They are really big ones so horses can take a big draught/play with it, not put up toohigh and have been secured in a corner so that if the horse uses them to sit on/rub on they wont come off. all the horses were using them within 24h, they take 2 mins to clean, can be shut off in the stable so if needed you can still monitor how much is being drunk. It saves them time-the only thing I'm not convinced of is them freezing in the wnter although they are lagged, but we shall see!

 

[Frazer]

We have autos where I am, I find them a lot easier, and one less thing to worry about having to do. Seeing as your a D.I.Y yard, this would appeal to the clients more, because it saves time. For mesuring how much they drink, i put a plaster on the outside of the drinker, but only do this when they are on box rest really.

 

[Santa_Claus]

At the yard im at the automatic drinkers are a godsend as my horse drinks like a fish (around 4-5 standard buckets a day) and has a deep love of tipping up/throwing around anything that is in his stable especially buckets!!! All the pipes are lagged to help prevent freezing (have needed buckets about 7 days max in total over 5 years now), and the bowl has a rubber bung in the bottom to make cleaning very easy.

Granted my horse has kicked it off the wall once (now been moved) *whistles innocently* which caused 3 stables to flood as he did it at night but the destruction from that is nothing to what would happen if he had buckets. Also saves my arms and back from having to lug buckets back and forth!!

 

[fgroom]

I have auto's, each stable has it's own tap linked to the drinker so an individual auto can be turned off if necessary, they also have plugs in them so cleaning them is a easy.

 

[faerie666]

Automatic drinkers all the way for me. I've worked on yards with all sorts of arrangements for water, and automatics are by far the easiest. They're just as easy to clean as a bucket, and you're not forever carrying buckets back and forth. Also, they generally don't get knocked over or run out over night (unless broken, frozen etc.) If your worried about monitoring the water intake you can have a system installed that'll read how much water comes out of each drinker (some sort of counter in the pipe just above the drinker), but this could be relatively expensive. Personally, i monitor my horses condition rather than the amount of water they drink, it's really very easy to tell if a horse is dehydrated. Just look at their wee and poo, or pinch a bit of skin on the neck (if it goes flat again quickly horse is ok, if it stays creased up horse is dehydrated). The amount of water a horse drinks fluctuates a lot anyway, depending on how much work they're doing, what they get fed, if they're eating grass, hay or haylage, even if it's been raining a lot. If i worry that one of them is not drinking enough i'll put a lump of rocksalt in the manger or add some salt to their feed to make them drink more. I've never had any problems with dehydrated horses. I'm sure there are plenty of people who will dissagree with me, and tell me it's very important to know exactly how much water a horse drinks, but i have faith in my horses to know how much water they need.

 

[MillionDollar]

Thanks for all your replys so far.

Think i might be going for the automatics! Have to admit one of my stables has an automatic in and it is so much easier and none of my horses have a problem with them. Just thought most people liked buckets- obviously i was wrong, lol.

Thanks again,

Claire

 

[PeterNatt]

I use the Paxton automatic horse drinkers which are large plastic corner units with a drain bung which one can remove to drain them. I have plumbed them in so that each of them has a stopcock so that it can be turned off independantly when cleaning them out. When you order them order spare ball valves as they do occasionally fail and also some spare bungs in case the liveries loose them.

Saves me a fortune on water bills and aggrovation.

 

[JessPickle]

Our yard is all buckets, I like to know how much my horse is drinking, he did used to drink loads of standard buckets so I bought really huge tub trug type things which I fill up with buckets each of them take 2 standard buckets of water.

 

[GTs]

If you do go with auto's becareful where you place the piping - out here in the US it is common to run them high, on the outside of the barn - the problem is in the summer the pipes are in the sun, making the water boiling hot, and ofcourse the horses will not drink that.

Hot weather + horses not drinking = Vet Bills

 

[WishfulThinker]

Buckets!! Cos if a horse poos in a bucket it can still technically drin kthe water if the poo settles - in an automatic they cant!! Ive seen a few horses before that have gone a whole night without water cos of this - and a few flooded stables cos one drinker was CRAMMED full of poo - sounds silly I know!

Plus to clean them you have to scrub and slosh them out - ideally with salt water.

Although I like the sound of the ones PeterNatt has

 

[AmyMay]

We had automatic drinkers put in at my yard last year. It has been a godsend with regards to work load etc.

However, my horse won't drink out of it - so I still fill buckets!!