Drought can limit available pasture, but it can also create a shortage of stock water. Even if there is adequate grass in a pasture, it’s of no value if there’s no water for the cattle. Many ranchers have become proactive in dealing with water issues.

Emry Birdwell of Henrietta, Texas, moves cattle several times a day to new pasture, allowing each pasture a long rest to fully recover before grazing it again. His ranch has 120 permanent paddocks fenced with electric hard wire. He divides each of those three to five ways with polywire.

“We’d been watering in dirt tanks that collect rainwater runoff, but during a drought we put in a pipeline so we can pump from those into water troughs,” he says. He then created a mobile water trough, pump and generator — on a trailer that can be moved from one water hole to another.

“This enables us to pump from a fenced-off water source and stretches the water supply further. The portable trough is a big propane tank cut in half — 24 feet (ft.) long and 5 feet wide, holding about 1,500 gallons (gal.) and mounted on dual wheels,” says Birdwell. It waters 30 cattle at once, and they can just keep coming and drinking.

“We use the trough two ways,” he explains. “We use it on a pressurized line, and [we] can also pump directly out of any water source.”

Birdwell fenced off the dirt tanks to keep manure and urine out of the water.

“We pull our trough up to that fenced-off dirt tank and pump water continually into the trough. An overflow outlet from the trough runs any extra water back to the dirt tank,” he says. “The 7-horsepower pump can run at whatever speed we need to keep the trough full when cattle are drinking. If it gets ahead of the cattle, the water goes back to the source.”

The drains also facilitate emptying the trough quickly when it’s time to move.

This innovation helps stretch water supplies during drought, and is helpful even under normal conditions.

“Wherever we have water lines across pastures, with valves we can hook up to, we can run water to areas we’ve never had water before,” says Birdwell.

Northern exposure

Ian Murray, a rancher in south-central Alberta (52 miles northwest of Calgary), also fences off his dugouts and water sources so cattle can’t get into them.

“The dugouts last longer if cattle are not allowed to damage the banks, and vegetation around the dugout stays intact and acts a filter,” he says.

“Some people don’t like trees and brush around a dugout because leaves end up in the water in the fall, but trees provide shade and keep the water cooler (less evaporation) and help stabilize the banks and soil,” Murray explains. “When we have a dry year, we lose a lot less water, and the cattle aren’t trampling it into mud. You have more water if the cattle stay out of it; a little bit of water can go a lot further. The water we are pumping is also clean.”

Ranchers in the West have lost use of pastures this year because the streams and springs they depend on for water are drying up. Some are hauling water, and it helps if a person is already set up to do so.

Jeff Brown, a rancher in South Dakota, several years ago made a portable water rig out of an old Army 6-by-6 truck. The tank on it holds 4,000 gal., and the rig can be driven anywhere on the ranch.

“We drag some 1.5-inch high-density poly pipe around to service the tank. If the cattle all come to drink at once, there will be 10 gallons for every cow,” says Brown.