collecting rain water for yor animals

[nightshade]

okay here is the thing. I have rain barrels that supply about 80% of my water for my gardens. I want to take this a step further and collect rain water to substise my water for my animals, and duck pond. Has anyone every tried this? I am sure the water for the aniamls to drink will need to be filtered as well as have a much larger storage tank then my little rain barrels. I know you can buy really $ cistern systems , but I am looking to build my own if possible. Any hints, tips, ideas?

 

[Settin'_Pretty]

I think you would do better just drawing water from the well for animals, less chance of something doing wrong.
Rain cleans pollution from the air, to then try and filter and use it for animals just seems to me to be more work and effort than it's worth.

 

[silkiechicken]

I know there are rain water filtration systems but I don't know if it is something you should try to make on your own because the stuff in the water the system filters out probably do long term things that you might not notice in the first 5 months, like smog, heavy metals, tire dust, and junk that floats over from the air of around the world.

 

[patandchickens]

I seriously doubt that rainwater *as it falls from the sky* is more contaminated than well or municipal water.

However, what happens to it after it hits your roof is a significant concern. You get your biological contamination -- bird poo, parasites, fecal bacteria, etc plus all the microbiological fun that they support when the water is stored in a barrel or cistern -- and also your chemical contamination from whatever the roof and gutters are made of. AFAIK asphalt shingle, tarpaper, and cedar shake roofs are considered Not Good, galvanized is considered questionable, painted metal is considered questionable by some but prolly not a big issue for animals only, and tile roofs are considered the safest.

Personally I don't think I'd use stored collected water for animals unless I really really *had* to. If I had a tip-bucket or other system to discard the early part of the runoff I might use roof water to fill troughs directly after a rain, I suppose, if I had a painted metal roof (I actually do think about doing this, sometimes, from my horse shed roof).

I don't see as much problem with funnelling it into a duckpond (which is presumably exposed to many of the same sources of bacterial/viral contamination anyhow). Dunno as I'd put shingle or tarpaper runoff into a tiny in-ground pond that couldn't be dumped and would concentrate toxins, but if it's larger, or if it's something that is dumped and refilled periodically, I don't think you'd have too many worries about Stuff building up.

Storage is tougher, though. Especially with modern attitudes towards what constitutes an acceptible level of cistern-caused disease. If you really wanted to store it for animals, I'd think yeah you probably should have both a tip-bucket type system (to discard the early part of the runoff, which will carry more crud from the roof) AND a purification system. Ideally the purification system should include not just a filter (a large drip-type sand canister would probably work, you'd just have to give it time to drip since you'd have little water pressure) but ALSO a u/v unit to kill bacteria and viruses too small for the filter to catch. Unfortunately I think it might be not only expensive but *difficult* to run a u/v unit on an unpressurized intermittantly-used water line. (The bulbs are expensive, they mustn't be run when the line is dry, etc). Without the u/v unit, you're basically taking chances with dysentery and disease for the animals. Most likely you'd get away with it *most* of the time, it just depends how you feel about problems that occurred.

Here is a very useful link: http://www.harvesth2o.com/resources.shtml

JMO,

Pat

 

[Settin'_Pretty]

I seriously doubt that rainwater *as it falls from the sky* is more contaminated than well or municipal water.


JMO,

Pat

I disagree.
Water drawn from a deep well has been filtered by mother earth, through rocks, gravel, sand, etc.
I would agree on municipal water, I wouldn't wash my dog with that stuff.

Two different animals...
Municipal water is grabbed out of a lake / reservoir run through a filter and then treated with chloride to kill the bacteria they miss and the fluoride is added as well.
Not good stuff.

 

[patandchickens]

I seriously doubt that rainwater *as it falls from the sky* is more contaminated than well or municipal water.


JMO,

Pat

I disagree.
Water drawn from a deep well has been filtered by mother earth, through rocks, gravel, sand, etc.
I would agree on municipal water, I wouldn't wash my dog with that stuff.

Well, okay, a deep well.

But anything less than a hundred feet or so, especially in an agricultural area, OR anything even from a deep aquifer if you're near some neighbor with an old or poorly maintained well, then me, I would prefer the rainwater. Especially if you're not in the city and not immediately downwind of any especially heavy polluters.

Frankly I'd take municipal water over the water in a whole big lotta wells out there.

While there is lotsa stuff in rainwater that makes it more than just distilled water, the concentrations are mostly incredibly low, and there are few complex organics (pesticides etc) involved, at least.

JMO,

Pat

 

[Settin'_Pretty]

see my edit above.

I'll also add this.
Here in the U.S. shallow wells are being fazed out, most banks won't loan on homes unless they have a deep well.

Want to add this too,
I worked in Industrial Maintenance for over 25 years.
At one point I was called in to work on a break down of the water filtration system for Lake Lanier in Georgia.
THis is the water supplied to Atlanta and surrounding areas.

The system is set up like this.....
IF the filter system gets clogged it bypasses the untreated water right into the pipes that feed the city.
That's just how they work.

You as a consumer of that water never know if your water has been treated or not.

 

[patandchickens]

Well (so to speak <g>), let me just say that however much shallow wells may be being 'phased out' there are still a *whooooole* buncha them out there, most of which are not going anywhere anytime soon

More worrisome is the number of wells, shallow *or* deep, that get contaminated. I.e, contaminate the aquifer and affect other people's theoretically-good wells. Mostly because they're not constructed to modern [meaning, very recent] standards or because they're not properly cared for. The wellhead floods, livestock (or even just a bunch of pooey dogs) are kept right over 'em, they're not properly sealed, the seals have cracked, a buried fuel tank leaked, an aboveground fuel tank leaked, someone's 55 gal drum of herbicide leaked, something crawled into an insufficiently capped-off unused well and died, etcetera.

There is only so much that Mother Earth can purify in a shortish time or distance ;>

The thing about *most* of the wellwater (and municipal water) contaminants is that they lean more towards slow-acting chronic toxins, whereas cistern water leans more towards 'get dysentery and die' type microbiological issues. Which may be relevant to the question of watering livestock from a cistern supply.

Thinking about it further during the day, it seems to me that if I wanted to do it, I'd be inclined to store the water in an OPEN container, like a really big stock tank, rather than a closed one. Then algae will take a lot of the nutrients out and take care of much of the potential microbiological problems for you. Should maintain pretty good drinkable water for livestock. You just want to manipulate it so's to avoid bluegreen algal blooms (potentially toxic) - basic pond management sorts of things. And of course keep your animals and neighbors' children from falling in Yeah, you'll lose some from evaporation, but it would be a lot simpler than going the closed cistern route, if you ask me.

JMHO,

Pat

 

[Rosalind]

I'd be a-feared of skeeters from an open cistern. We've got EEE and West Nile and darn near everything but malaria around here. I think the malaria is just a matter of time, too.

What about building a water garden for filtration? You'd have to have a bit of a slope in lieu of a pump, but what about running it through a catchment basin at the top of the slope with some sand and gravel in, then through a trough planted with reeds, then through a series of flow forms (concrete or plastic shapes that make the water swirl so it's aerated and gets sunlight), then in a covered cistern? And you could uncover it for animals to access, or dish it out as needed? I think if the water kept moving, it wouldn't get so buggy or fouled.

 

[patandchickens]

I'd be a-feared of skeeters from an open cistern. We've got EEE and West Nile and darn near everything but malaria around here. I think the malaria is just a matter of time, too.

Anyone in an area that already has mosquitofish (Gambusia) can just throw a handful into a big open cistern, they will take care of any mosquitos. You will have to replace them after a freezing winter of course. For those in areas where mosquitofish are verboten (they're rather invasive and obnoxious when they get loose, and amazingly there *are some* places where they have not already got loose) you use goldfish, although in moderation as they have more deleterious effects on water quality than mosquitofish do.

What about building a water garden for filtration? You'd have to have a bit of a slope in lieu of a pump, but what about running it through a catchment basin at the top of the slope with some sand and gravel in, then through a trough planted with reeds, then through a series of flow forms (concrete or plastic shapes that make the water swirl so it's aerated and gets sunlight), then in a covered cistern? And you could uncover it for animals to access, or dish it out as needed? I think if the water kept moving, it wouldn't get so buggy or fouled.

There you go, I'm still suspicious of a covered cistern for storing things for very long, but what about a great big 'container pond' that you can bleed water off for the animals? Use a big livestock watering container, either Rubbermaid type or one of the galvanized ones painted with epoxy paint inside it - that is actually the sort of thing I did my PhD research in, like 20 years ago Small fountain-type pump for aeration, some fast-growing plants to keep the water chemistry reasonable and outcompete the bacteria, some mosquitofish, and there you go.

I can tell you that the ones I ran in the piedmont of NC generally held a neutral or positive balance of water just from rainfall... mind you I was not drawing water off for animals but then I was not putting any water INTO them either, and you would be. In the desert it'd be a different story, but IIRC nightshade you are in PA (?).

Just an idea, depends largely on how easily you could get a BIG BIG cheap cattle tank like that.

Pat