Dead bird in water trough!

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spotty_pony

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I found a dead bird in my horses water trough today - not sure how long it has been there for but they only moved fields today and as they are the big round refillable ones I didn't check it until this evening which I now feel really bad about! I'm worried they might have drank some and it's going to make them ill! :( anyone else have any experiences of this? Just really worried about them now and hope they're going to be ok. :(
 
It's hot the birds need water they make mistakes we always make sure we put some in shallow bowls for them when the weathers like this .
 
We have had this with one of the buckets in the field this year, sadly found two young Magpies in there, the horses hadn't touched that bucket, but did have five more to choose from. When we had hens one committed suicide in the field trough, the horses left the water alone. The hens had water they could get to without drowning, but she still did it.
 
You need to leave floats in water troughs for the birds and other things that may fall in. We leave flat planks, not round logs for obvious reasons ;) it makes no difference to the horses but birds can land on them and drink and rodents can climb onto them if/when they fall in.

There are also various sorts of 'ladders' you can fabricate up the side of the tanks - Hessian sacking, plaited string, chicken wire, etc, etc ... the birds and others will thank you. I can't imagine how awful it is to just swim and swim until exhaustion means they drown, dreadful way to die.
 
Sparrows don't swim very well - have had several drown in the trough. Given that my horses drink from puddles and all sorts of streams, as well as eating grass that has goodness knows what on it, I have never worried.
 
One year I found three kestrel fledglings drowned, over the course of two days, that was horrid. I now always tip over any water butts I am not using. I am pretty sure horses would not drink the water unless desperate and that would take more then one evening.
 
I've got a birdbath (an old children's water/sand play table) next to my trough, with a bit of water and a brick in it. Safe drinking for the birds. The birds can sit on the side of a trough and, if the water is a bit low, topple in when leaning in trying to reach it.
 
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