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| This post reminds me of my water hauling days. It was a 34 mile round trip, sometimes 3x a day. I am so glad that is over! Back then I used a 1500 gal tank on a 2 ton truck. I also have a 450 gal tank for my 3/4 ton pickup. Sometimes I pulled a neighbor's bumper pull flatbed with a 1300 gal tank on it so I was actually hauling more water than with the truck.
I'm assuming this tank setup involves a garden hose float coming out of the 600 gallon storage tank. Gravity flow on a single float is not going to provide very fast recovery. IIRC, an 8' round stock tank holds about 600 gallons and a 10' is around 900. For best gains you need to do everything within reason to assure easy access for cattle to come in and drink without a lot of competition at the water tank.
If this is a temporary setup I'd say get a couple steel stock tanks and start out by filling them both daily. That's easy to do gravity flow if your hauling tank has a 2" drain. If starting out with a couple full stock tanks, then your 600 gallon storage tank would likely keep up easily. Also remember that small calves have a hard time drinking if the big tank gets down much. When mama cow gets done drinking the calf will take off with her regardless if it has got enough water.
Pehaps you could put in a creep area for calves to drink out of a sheep tank. When grass gets dried out later in summer with big calves on the cows and it's 100 degrees in the shade I'd say you're looking at 40 gal/pair/day.
Edited by John SD 5/9/2010 12:52
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how much water do i need?
