Stock Tanks & Livestock Watering Systems

Sizing water for a cow herd

Summer figures for this country run 10 to 20 gallons per cow-calf pair per day, more in a heat wave. The tank and the storage behind it need to cover peak demand plus a cushion for the day the pump quits and nobody notices until evening.

We size from your head count and your source. A windmill over a slow well wants more storage than a strong solar pump over a good well. There is no one right tank, only the right tank for the setup.

Where the tank goes matters as much as the tank

Tanks placed on high, firm ground with piped-away overflow stay clean and keep their pad for decades. Tanks in low spots become bogs that trap calves and breed flies. Distance matters too: cattle graze roughly a mile from water, so tank placement is grass management.

We have set tanks on this range for years. Tell us how you rotate and we will put the water where it does the most work.

Troughs, storage, or both?

A trough is where cattle drink. Storage is where water waits. Small operations sometimes get by with a big trough alone, but the setups that never run dry pair a modest trough with real storage behind it: a ground tank holding several days of demand, feeding the trough through a float.

That split does two useful things. It carries the herd through calm spells, cloudy stretches, and pump repairs without anyone hauling water. And it lets the well and pump run gently, filling storage slowly around the clock instead of chasing thirsty cattle at 3 PM in August.

The marginal cost of adding storage while the trencher and crew are already on site is small. The cost of adding it later, after a dry weekend proves you needed it, is a whole second mobilization.

The freeze details that keep tanks working in January

Winter stock water fails at the details: a float valve frozen in its housing, a supply line buried two inches too shallow, an overflow that iced into a dam. We plumb below frost depth, use freeze-rated float assemblies, and set drain-back where the design allows, so a hard norther is a weather event and not a plumbing event.

Deep water holds heat. A properly sized tank with volume under it stays open in cold that skins a shallow trough with ice, which saves you mornings spent breaking ice with an axe.

Set tanks before summer grazing

The best time to add pasture water is late winter and spring, before turnout. Summer is for using water, not for finding out you need more of it. If this year taught you a pasture is short on water, get on the schedule now for next season.

Fall works too, especially for pairing tank projects with well or windmill service while the truck is already on your place. Bundled trips save money, and we will tell you when bundling makes sense.