JACKSON, Minn. — Ross Dicks and his wife usually raise from five to eight head of beef cattle in a lot on their eight-acre farm in Jackson. Typically, he feeds the cattle out from 500 to 600 pounds to 1,400 to 1,500 pounds before selling them directly to customers.
Usually, these are the “oddball” cattle — which have mixed colors or other characteristics that can hinder their sale — from a cow-calf operation of about 200 head run by his father, brother and himself.
Like Dicks, small, family-operated farms are the ultimate multi-taskers, with many raising crops and livestock or producing food for their animals on the farm.
However, operating on a smaller scale actually presents unique demands that those with larger farms do not face.
Whether managing the land, caring for crops, maintaining and repairing fences, buildings and equipment, or breeding, raising, or training animals, for farmers with small herds the work is never done.
Unlike large, commercial farms that direct other laborers’ duties, on small, family-operated farms, all the work is usually performed by the owner and his or her family.
One major challenge arrives when cold weather hits and livestock must have access to fresh water. This is critical to help optimize livestock health, weight gain and sale price.
However, cold weather can require farmers to wake early to break up and remove any ice that formed overnight on the surface of any waterers spread out across their property.
This can feel like one task too many for overburdened farmers. Yet this is a critical task that is vital to the health of livestock such as cattle, horses, sheep, goats, or bison, no matter how small the herd.
The challenge is only complicated further for smaller operations by the fact that, in frigid conditions, fewer animals drinking only accelerates the icing over of waterers. In unheated systems, the water valve and plumbing may even freeze up if there is not enough livestock traffic.
While using heating elements is an option in some automatic watering systems, this adds the extra expense of running electrical lines to the unit, which is not always feasible in remote locations. It can also add hundreds or thousands of dollars in heating costs over time.
When such systems rely on livestock learning how to manipulate a door, lid or ball to drink, this can be difficult for some animals. In winter or cold climates, the door or lid can freeze shut allowing for no water access or it can freeze open, which allows the valve to freeze, so it is unusable.
As a solution, there are some innovative earth-heated, automatic “open water” systems that provide livestock with a reliable trouble-free watering source even in sub-zero temperatures with low to no animal traffic. Such partially buried systems keep valves operating.
Overnight water surface ice that may develop is easy to address. Simply break open the thin layer of ice, throw out some chunks and walk away within a minute or less.
These surprisingly durable designs prevent water valves and plumbing from freezing while providing the owner easy wide-open access as needed by simply removing the water tub.
Deter Freezing Even with Low to No Traffic
For the Dicks family farm, keeping the cattle properly hydrated was challenging in cold weather.
“At first, we used a tub as a waterer, but I had to go out every day and break the ice and refill it when cold weather started,” Dicks said. “It was an added chore we didn’t want and a problem if we ever got too busy and forgot.”
At the recommendation of his father, Dicks turned to an “open water” automatic livestock waterer from Cobett, an American manufacturer of farmer-designed, earth-heated waterers.
Unlike most other unheated systems that typically require cattle to open a door or lid to access water, the automatic livestock waterers are open water so the animals do not have to manipulate anything in order to drink fresh water. The open water system is natural like drinking out of a pond, so cattle intuitively know how to use them.
Because the system is an earth-heated, partially buried system with essentially just a tough tub of water above ground, electric heat is not required for valve or plumbing protection.
The system fully utilizes a wide column of ground heat by placing the tub inside the ground heat chamber — not just above it — so the entire tub of water is constantly and directly warmed or cooled by the surrounding underground temperatures. This continuous exposure to ground warmth around the water container effectively retards the formation of ice on top.
Because there are no doors, seals or a concrete pad, there are no cracks for air leaks. Lacking a door or covering that could accidentally freeze shut or open, the design allows Mother Nature to generate a relatively small amount of ice on the water surface, which livestock can sometimes break through on their own.
“I run my Cobett waterer in the fall and early spring with no electricity and it doesn’t ice up one bit. As long as the temperature is not down into the single digits, it is just fine even with low to no traffic. Even if the surface glazes over a little, the cattle will break that open so I don’t have to mess with it,” Dicks said.
“It’s nice compared to a typical waterer that you’d have to go out and break ice on every day when it gets below 32 degrees,” he added.
Electric heat is not required for valve protection. However, there is room below the tub to hang a low-wattage heating device for reducing surface ice.
“I’ve never had an issue with a freezing valve on the unit,” Dicks said.
To reduce surface ice in lower temperatures, however, Dicks recently chose to install an electric heater in his unit, which he said makes ice essentially a non-issue.
Dicks points out that his father has not needed to use an electric heater in his open water units — a small unit for a single animal at a time and a large unit which can provide water for up to three animals at a time. The increased cattle traffic keeps the units from icing over even in colder weather and enables significant energy bill savings.
“Dad does have some older open trough style waterers with heating elements, but wanted some waterers that didn’t need electricity,” Dicks said. “Since the Cobett waterers haven’t required electric heating for dad, they save him about $1,000 a year in energy costs.”
According to Dicks, another advantage of this approach is that the earth-heated waterers can be put anywhere they are needed, without worrying about running electricity to them.
“Dad put an earth heated waterer out in a paddock,” Dicks said. “It was 500 yards away from the barn, so it would have been quite a trenching job to run electricity to it, under all the cattle fencing.”
For both Dicks and his father, however, there are some additional advantages to the design.
Unlike typical waterers which have a narrow access hole for repair work, with the Cobett unit lifting the water container out leaves a wide hole with easy access to the valve and plumbing if needed.
The design also makes it easy to utilize the waterer’s plumbing as a water supply line for other uses, via a quick-coupler like fitting under the water container that can be used to rinse out the tub, fill a sprayer, or other tasks.
“Basically, the earth-heated waterers save us time, hassle, and reliably provide water for our livestock,” Dicks said. “I haven’t had anything mechanically go wrong with mine since I began using it years ago.”
When keeping fresh water available to cattle and other livestock during cold weather has become overly burdensome or costly, farmers with small and even large herds can find a cost-effective, long-term solution with earth-heated, automatic open water systems.
For more information, call 888-699-4722, or visit www.cobett.com.