We've had this solar water tank for about 3 years. It is really great. Uses passive solar to keep the water from freezing. How it works is the tank within a tank method. There is an inner tank that holds the water and an outer shell with a plexi-glass "window" on one side. In the winter, the tank's window gets oriented toward the sun, in our case south. The sun passively heats the inner tank via the plexi-glass window. In the summer, the tank is turned 180 degrees so that the window stays in the shade keeping the water cool.
The tank comes with a heavy black oblong floating lid to keep debris out and the heat in. The goats were not able to press hard enough on the lid supplied with the tank to get to the water....so we cut this goat sized lid from a piece of foam we had around. During the last 3 years we've had to replace the foam lid as the Maremmas tend to think that it is great fun to "steal" the lid and rip it to shreds. This year the dogs are a bit older and wiser and would be embarrassed to be caught in the middle of such foolishness - NOT ! (If you look closely you can see distinctive teeth marks in the upper left hand curve of the blue foam lid. Dogs: you've been discovered and exposed! Ha! That'll teach 'ya!)
BTW - What do you suppose goats talk about around the water cooler ? We'll never know and maybe that's a good thing.
5, Count'em, 5 Days 'Til Spring
2 comments:
Is the solar watering tank you are using a Suntank? I was thinking about getting one for my sheep but was not sure how they would work since they are made for horses. At this point anything would be better than running that stock tank heater for 5 months...
Great blog, really good looking livestock!
Hi Lucas, Yes the tank is a Sun Tank. The model we have is called a "bob trough". We use it for both goats and sheep. The way we trained the animals to use the trough is by feeding a bit of grain on top of the float lid. (We use a piece of lighter weight bendable foam instead of the plastic float lid.) Some of our animals are a bit height challenged with regard to the height of the trough so we have placed a couple of cement blocks along the base as a step for them.
This has worked out really pretty well for us. Once in a great while - say if the temperature is in the single digits and there is a strong wind - the tank will ice over by maybe a 1/2 inch. This happens mostly at night.If that happens we just carry a 5 gallon water jug of hot water out and pour it over the ice to melt it and we're back in business!
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