Rolling Dog Farm Blog

Yesterday evening I was feeding two of our blind horses in their shed next to Beauty's Barn when the intercom on my phone rang.  It was Alayne (um, no one else here who could be calling!), reporting that there was no water at Lena's Barn.  All the automatic waterers in the corrals were out of water and there was no water coming out of the hydrants next to the barn.  It was already getting dark, it was 15° below zero (-26°C), and this was the absolute last thing I wanted to hear.  We always check the waterers whenever we're out feeding, and they were working fine yesterday morning. 

The water system at Lena's Barn serves all of our other barns, sheds and corrals at that end of the ranch; Beauty's Barn is about 150 yards (137 meters) away on a separate well, but almost all the livestock use the water system at Lena's Barn.  In other words, this was A.Major.Problem.

Now, one thing you need to know:  Livestock have an uncanny 6th sense about knowing when a water system fails.  And the instant it fails, they become insatiably thirsty.  They can be standing around all day, right next to full waterers, and show no interest in drinking.  But if a breaker quietly trips in the barn electrical system and knocks the well off-line, for instance, somehow they know it at that very moment … and suddenly, they're all thirsty and drinking up the water.  So by the time we discover there's an issue, there's no water left in their waterers.   

Which is, of course, what happened yesterday.  The yellow-and-red Ritchie automatic waterers — you can see one in the background in the photo above — were dry, and naturally, we had horses hovering over them as if they hadn't had anything to drink for days. 

So I put the phone back in my belt holster, cursed the sub-zero weather, and trudged down the drive to the house to get my headlamp and then to Lena's Barn. 

The pressure tank for the water system sits 7 feet underground in a giant 8-foot (2.4 m) wide, 8-feet deep  culvert next to the well — that's what you see in the photo.  It's covered by a round steel plate with a hatch that slides back across the cover for access, and there's a ladder inside we climb down to the ground to check the pressure tank and fittings.  All the pipes that feed the automatic waterers and hydrants start at the pressure tank and head out across the corrals from there, all buried at least 6 feet underneath the surface for freeze protection.  Alayne had already checked the breaker panel in the barn and nothing had tripped there.  The surge protection panel for the well pump was working. 

Had it really been so cold that the pressure tank fittings and pipes had frozen 7 feet underground?

We pulled the metal hatch back.  As soon as we had moved it a foot I looked down and could see in the light from my headlamp what the problem was:  the 2-inch (5 cm) thick rigid foam insulation glued to the underside of the hatch had separated and fallen into the bottom of the culvert.  The cold was working its way through the now uninsulated metal hatch and seeping into the space below, eventually overcoming the ground heat that should have kept it above freezing that deep underground.  It had taken a couple of days of -20° and -30° degree cold to penetrate, but penetrate it had.  The foam insulation on the rest of the lid was still very much in place, but losing it from underneath the hatch was enough heat loss to make the difference.

I climbed down the ladder and confirmed that it was indeed just below freezing at ground level. 

First things first:  Provide a lot of supplemental heat, and fast!  Alayne went to the welcome center and retrieved an extra portable radiator.  I carried it down the ladder, plugged it into an outlet next to the pressure tank, and turned it on.  If the system had frozen up, this would do the trick, but only time would tell. 

Next up:  How to insulate the hatch?  Of course, we weren't about to be able to glue the insulation panels back on to the hatch in 15 below weather, so that left the obvious choice:  Horse blankets!  Alayne headed to Scout's Barn, picked up a couple of our extra winter horse blankets, and covered up the hatch.

At this point there was nothing more we could do except wait and see if the water started flowing.

At 9 p.m., when we headed back out to check on all the horses, it was -20 below zero.  We walked into Lena and Nikki's corral, went over to the waterer … and found it was full of water.  Whew!  

Not a single horse was anywhere near a waterer.  Of course not.  They were all contentedly eating their hay.  But weren't these all the same horses who were staring at their empty waterers just a few hours earlier?  Yes, but that's different.  Why show any interest in drinking when everything's working just fine?

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Still No. 1 — But That Iowa Group Is Moving Up Fast!

Please keep voting for the ranch every
day in The Animal Rescue
Site/PetFinder's Shelter Challenge.  Thanks
to your votes, we came in third nationwide and won $3,000 for the
animals in the previous contest earlier this year.  Now we have a shot at No. 1 and the
$20,000 grand prize in the current contest!  Enter
"Rolling Dog Ranch" and our state postal code, MT for Montana,
and it will bring up our listing so you can cast your vote.  Please ask
your family and friends to vote, too. 

You can see how fast the rankings can change, so we really need an
extra push in the last two weeks of the contest to hold that No. 1
spot.  It ends on December 20th, so we're in the home stretch — and $20,000 for the animals is in sight!  Thank you!