Water

When we first started we were using watering buckets. Each day for chores we had to fill buckets with water and pour into the large watering bucket(s) or we would run a hose from the milk house to the water bucket(s). This wasn't too bad when we only had a few goats, but after growing larger it started to become a tedious job. The goats also tended to poop in the water buckets and the bucks beards, which were covered with their urine, would be in the water when they got a drink. This just made the water nasty and unhealthy!

We got the idea from Windsong Farm for our new watering system we use. Since we are using an old dairy cow barn, we busted out the floor of one gutter and dug down about 3 feet. This will keep the piping from ever freezing. We used k-pex tubing (it expands instead of breaking if it ever did manage to freeze) to run the water from what used to be the milk house down the length of the barn. An electrical line was also run alongside the tubing to allow industrial heat tape to be installed for each waterer. The heat tape is wrapped around copper pipes with pig nipples which has pipe insulation wrappped around them. Once this was all done, we put pvc piping over them to keep them from getting ruined. The heat tape can be shut off from the milk house when it isn't needed. We have had this system in place for over 2 years and have not had a problem. This provides fresh, clean water for the goats at all times! Many thanks to Joe Carter's dad Jim for helping with the installation of this great water system. (Jim does heating and plumbing).