You've never seen livestock watering system like this! Automatic No Electricity!

hey there folks this is Josh Stoney Ridge farmer welcome back to the farm the cows are all down here in anticipation of something fun going down it's not food but that's what they're waiting for so today we're going to be working with our watering system down here at the cows on the opposite side of the farm from our house now this is probably I don't know three four hundred yards from our house we don't have a water system set up over here other than passive water flow by siphon in other words gravity fed water down to our waters you can see one water right down here and then there's another one right here so what we want to do is try and space our waters out about a hundred feet we're going to show you a cool contraption here we'll take you through the installation and the assembly of this entire critter and this is going to help us to have our passive water system maintenance-free this is a float valve that goes in our water tanks pretty cool so come along as we have a little bit of fun give you some ideas for your place and how you can set up a passive water system on your own property all right [Music] guys this is Butthead and this is boss cow and over here is number one number one thinks she's a movie star good stuff our stock here are all Black Angus cows for right now this cow here weighs somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,100 to 1,200 pounds and I believe she is pregnant and the one behind her is probably about 1152 1250 and that's the first cow that we bought here on the farm we're going to start mob grazing pretty soon this summer as we get our electric line put in on our fence right here first things first we're gonna drive up here to the dam so I can show you exactly where this water comes from crews on up top here now you guys might wonder why we didn't put our fence here instead of here well you're seeing the reason right now we can maintain our fence lines by having a six to eight foot path on the side of the fence here so we'll just keep this mode and that way we don't get brush and trees all in our fence line and this is a bit of a tight squeeze there we go it screws down here to the pond guys I apologize about the wind it's whipping today probably 3040 miles an hour at time so this is our pond right here this is about an acre and a half pond it was built in 1961 we actually dammed this pond up right there head of the pipe we dammed it up and we put a new pipe in the old pipe is still out here from 1961 and we were praying that we don't have a failure anytime soon this pond somewhere in the neighborhood of eight to ten feet deep right smack in the middle of it now right here we have a float this float is made of PVC there'll be a link to that video in the end of this video how we made this whole system but there is a float and a filter system and intake system right here you can see our our black poly pipe runs all the way down where the cows are bunched up right down there so we have probably 10 to 15-foot of drop right here from the pond itself down to the fence where we're watering so that's how we're watering this this whole system is passive it's all done off a siphon all I had to do was get it started one time and it will continuously run awesome let's get down there to the fence we'll show you how we're setting all that up I think it's only befitting to show you guys the setup that currently is in place right here so this is a three-quarter inch poly it is running like a charm so this is a valve you can see that's three quarter inches of water it's coming out it's doing a good job this is what goes down into the tank currently and the tank is just right there in other words this just kind of hung here in place and fed that tank and what we had to do is come down here and turn the water on and off we also have a tank down the line just a little bit further and that's what that tee was for so the tee is to feed the tank that's down the line what we were running into was having to come down here basically daily and turn the water on and we would kind of walk away and leave it and what would happen is the water tank would overflow it would run back into the creek everything was cool with that but I really didn't want a muddy mess down here so this new system is going to set us up for success and a low maintenance setup we don't want to have to come down and turn water on and turn water off this thing will maintain its siphon all the way down here and if we put the float valves in it will continue to maintain its siphon and we won't ever have to fool with these water tanks we'll just have to check on them daily or every other day or the cows will give us the ultimate sign a tipped over water tank means it's empty pretty cool so we're going to start out and we're gonna make some big changes here we're gonna put a shutoff valve on the corner down here so we can drive the Kubota right up to the corner we can shut the whole system on or off and then each tank is going to have its own float valve and shutoff valve so if we're getting a muddy mess by this water tank which we're not but you can see it was right there and you see a bit of a muddy mess where the cows are tearing the land up that's what we want to avoid so we want to put water tanks all down through here that way when we go to intensive grazing and we set up our different paddocks they'll have a water trough at each paddock or one split between each paddock and they'll have a constant water flow system cool let's go down here and we'll show you exactly what we're going to do we're actually going to zip-tie this pipe up to the fence line these are trays that we can lay down right here so obviously we don't want to run over our pipe here when we go back and forth with the Kubota so we've got these trays they are about one meter or about one yard long about three feet long and these are from tighten attachments I'll post a link down the video description as well as a coupon tighten attachments is a big supporter of the channel and a huge supporter of rural content so we're gonna stack these together and they basically lock in like Legos so you see that's a female receptacle and this is the male part basically like Legos so we'll snap them together real quick well snap these two together just like so now we've got a channel we can run over with our utility vehicle and not have to worry about that pipe pretty cool please flip up you can see our three-quarter inch pipe is right inside there if you've got a drop cord out in your driveway running your camper you need these that will save that drop cord and save your water hose if you've got a water hose ran across the driveway now we will have to be careful when we come through here with the zero turn we don't hit that we're going to take our three quarter inch poly that's packed full of water and we're going to cut it which is going to make a wet mess but we have a valve and we're going to slide this valve on so we quickly have to put our hose clamp on and our valve in place make sure everything's in the right place before we cut the pipe because we're going to make a wet mess and this is a lot of water that'll be coming through here we'll probably have a gallon of water or leak out of here and I'll have some wet pants here we go I wasn't as bad as I thought be sure you slip your hose clamp you can see all the water coming out let's slip our hose clamp over first we'll slip our valve on once we turn it off there we go you can see man that thing had some pressure push this together this will serve as our main shutoff more pipe is going down the line here so we're actually going to slide another hose clamp on here and we'll mash this together all it works so much better when it's warm outside this stuff is hard to work with when it's cold this is a low pressure system meaning probably we only have about 30 psi I haven't put a meter on here yet to check it but it's a low pressure system okay so now we know our line runs that way we've got the pipe covered and we're going to start zip tying our way if I can find my zip ties up this fence just a little bit so I want to get this off the ground so it doesn't get hit with the weed whacker as we come through here so I want my valve up off the ground for sure so we're just going to put some all-weather zip ties on here for now and if we wanted to we could come back and put some wire ties or something like that on here this is the system that we'll be using this year up until we start burying our pipe so on/off valve right there cows can't get to it cows will tear stuff up rest assured we're gonna put two zip ties right here for you folks that are obsessive about zip ties I'll come back and trim the ends off of these don't you worry I'm a little bit obsessive too so this is a coupling and we're gonna slide a coupling on this 3/4 inch pipe and then we'll attach right down here and we'll put our clamps on there hose clamps don't forget to put these on before you press it together or you'll be pulling it back apart trust me I did it so here's another example of a road crossing that we're gonna make right here and we're actually I'm gonna separate the two pieces right here just a little bit make sure they sit flat on the ground and that should cover the tractor and/or the skid steer for Kubota or utility vehicle so we'll flip that up layer pipe in boom good to go road crossing okay so you can see we're now running along the top here now there will be a high tensile electric line that'll be right about here okay so we want to do all this while the power is off and while we have access that's why we're doing it today because tomorrow we're gonna start running our high tensile electric out here on this fence our first water tank is going to go right here we're going to put a tee in place and we'll show you how the water tank valve setup works this is how your valve kit will come up okay we'll open the box up here and we'll show you exactly what we have to do there are two ways that you can mount this valve kit okay so here is the kit this is the valve setup and that is the float it all comes separate you know make sure you hang on to that little guy okay I'll show you how its assembled real quick comes with a bag of hardware with a map on it hang on to that you'll need it we bought four of these we bought two of the metal style like this and we bought two well the plastic style part of farming is experimenting and seeing what works the best well the plastic holdup better than the metal I have my doubts however they're priced pretty comparable so this is already assembled ready to rock and roll this is what we have to do inside this little baggie is a lot of hardware this is important there's a cotter key right here that's what holds our float in place there's a little tiny pinhole right there I'm gonna slide that through comes out the other side just like so make sure your float just hung up in there good okay and then we'll Bend our Cotter key back I'm just gonna bend one side of the Cotter key right here just like that that's how I've done it okay our float is in there it works and you can see this is the valve this is the actual valve right here okay that rubber piece closes the valve down deep in this our rubber washers and they actually put some extra valves so if this thing ever wears you've got extras hanging onto those put them in your water bucket for all your watering needs your plumbing bucket whatever you want to do so we'll slide this guy down in place I guess this could serve as a how-to video slide that guy down in place and that's what your valve closes up against so the rubber piece and the inside closes against that and then this is a washer that goes in place right here and this is designed to take a water hose now we've retrofitted ours a little bit we'll show you that in a second so we have two different mounting brackets we have a mounting bracket that looks like this like an L bracket and then we have like a u bracket okay so this is for hanging on the edge of a water tank or water trough in case you're not going to hang it on the edge of the water trough this is what you'd use so these guys are slid down in here just like so and then you would mount these to whatever you wanted to mount it up to in other words if you had a water tank and you just want to screw em down to the lip you can do that or you have this option also drop this guy in and it'll hang there okay these are held in place this is threaded so these holes in here are threaded now they're threaded for a reason let's pull up the one that we already have assembled okay so there are wing nuts that come with the kit and the wing nuts go on there and the screws install right inside of the valve now you have two choices you can go a little bit deeper so the water isn't all the way to the top that's what we chose so it's going to be this is going to sit down in the tank just a little bit further and I think that's going to help prevent damage now what we have here is just a PVC shutoff valve right here and this is a male end and everything has teflon tape on it this is an adapter that goes from male pipe thread right here so male pipe thread is what goes into this valve and then that adapter adapts to the water hose so we're not using the water hose but that's what this is designed for okay and then this will go to our poly line right over here and our tank so let's take it over to the tank it's just this simple we're gonna set it right from the center of the tank here and we're going to tighten up our wing nuts it couldn't be any simpler than that guys now I put the valve right smack in the middle of the tank for a reason I always see the cows approaching from this angle and from this angle never really straight on so this would be the furthest point that a cow would be able to reach up here and knock it out of the way and we're gonna put it on there really really snug I'm gonna finger tighten it first and then we'll probably take a pair of pliers and just turn it about an eighth of a turn so it's nice and snug here we don't want to risk bending something and or stripping out these little wing nuts because we'll need these again you can see I already have my PVC mounted up here the more you can do before you put it on the tank the better off you're going to be in my opinion and we also want to make sure that our C clamp or not our C clamp that our hose clamp is accessible and I've screwed up that right there I want this to be turned around the other way so what I'm going to do is make an adjustment but we also want to make sure we're not going to hit the the nut on the hose clamp with our knuckles as we're turning the valve on and off okay on off so we have a shutoff right here and this is a float valve so in case I want to run a different water tank or I don't want this one to be full or I'm going to clean the tank out I want to make sure that I have a way shutting it off that's what it's all about planning ahead I will not use a hose lamp on the tee up top here okay I'm gonna press fit it together that's in case these cows get too wrestling around and something goes wrong with the valve and there's no water in here they can knock this over without destroying everything in their path that's that's the whole goal here lift with your legs yeah right case you're wondering about the fence this fence is from farm fence solutions I'll post a link down the video description to all these goodies and to Luke at farm fence solutions this fence is awesome awesome awesome if any of you guys know Luke at farm fence solutions post a comment down there let them know we're talking about his fence this is super tight man it's like a banjo string okay if you don't have a poly pipe cutter add it to your arsenal of tools there we go so here's our T what we're gonna do we're gonna mash our T in place first and then we're going to cut our poly line this is the supply line right here now you don't want this zip tied all the way back that way if it's zip tied all the way that way then you don't have enough slack so before you zip tie it get everything installed and then zip tie it okay one cut don't watch it'll fly back and whack me just like it whack the tripod right there easy access on the hose clamp we want it to be facing out this way we don't want it all twist it around and then a mess okay we'll press it together press it on and up on there don't be lazy you're done do a good job be proud of it these are stainless clamps but head is the friendliest cow all the rest of the cows are just up there chillin but head it has to be like in the way is there water in my tank man I think I should knock this over what do you think should you knock it over I love these cows man super fun having them so we've got to hook another line on we're about 300 feet from our other water tank right here and again I'm spacing these out so that I can do some intensive grazing and so that all the water tanks aren't in the same spot so they're not all competing for the same one told you she's a ham inevitably livestock be it chickens cows goats whatever if one animal is there the other ones think they're missing something and they have to go there so we've got a little bit of work we got a string up another 200 foot or so of poly line by the way the plastic one is exactly the same okay just so you guys know and again we put this where we wouldn't bust a knuckle when we turn our water on and off and at the end of the video here in just a few seconds we're gonna finish up we're going to turn the water valve on to all these we'll show you how they work [Music] so we've got our pipe all the way down here we're gonna do the same thing we just did we're going to put our tea in kind of mark it with our finger take our pipe cutter and not cut our fingers off with it there we go little little twist off comes the scrap piece pick that up in a minute here is our tea we're gonna just press fit this again remember we're gonna press fit it I'm actually gonna drop just encase this for fun here I'm gonna drop a clamp on here in case it starts to leak right here I'll already have the clamp in place in case it starts to leak so we're gonna press this one down again our tank is right down here a valve in our tank nice and snug now if a cow can tear it up a cow will tear it up here's where we go from here so toss those zip ties over there so we're are line is all the way here from the pond way way up there and the line is going to continue down the fence line here I'm just going to go and I'm gonna put the line out there and on the end of it I'm gonna put a valve and I'll turn that valve on until I see water after I basically energize this whole system so I'll turn it on down there once I see water at the end I'll shut it off and I know what our pipe is totally full of water and then I'll turn on our tanks and the cows are kind of chomping at the bit a minute ago they were trying to get water like they hadn't had water in like three days they were all down here drinking just a minute ago so let's go out to the end I'll see you in just a second when we turn the water on from the pond all the way down this hill this is 300 feet almost 400 feet we're gonna turn on our main valve we're gonna go to the end and wait till we get water all the way down here at the end this is probably going to be a total of I'm gonna say 1,500 feet when we're all done with this so 15 runs each roll of 100 foot 3/4 inch pipe cost 23 bucks not too bad now we will go ahead and bury this line at some point and on this side of the farm at some point you guys stick around on the channel will probably be drilling an agricultural well over here we'll talk about the difference in an Ag well versus a well for your house so let's go down here and see if we got water our termination points right here well you see that pressure listen yeah we got pressure there we go right on…