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One of the things that matters to us a lot here in the cattle we raise is the kind of water we provide to drink
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And I want to show you a little bit about our system here
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This is a water trough of the sort that is used in the livestock business
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But the water that feeds it is actually clean drinking water suitable for people to drink
0:28
You can see the garden hose here. That connects to my son and daughter-in-law's house which is about 100 yards into the forest there
0:39
So we're using their terrific well to water their cattle, to water our cattle when they're in this part of the pasture
0:47
Garden hoses are very convenient to use for watering cattle because they can be left out all winter
0:55
They'll freeze and they won't be damaged like regular pipes. But most garden hoses are completely unsuitable for drinking water because of what they're made out of
1:05
This is actually a drinking water safe hose. It costs a bit more but it's quite tough
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It's farm grade and most importantly it doesn't allow chemicals to leach into the water that can not be good for cattle or the people who eat that meat too
1:24
Another thing is drinking out of a trough like this is not typical in pasture situations
1:31
A more usual approach is to dig a water hole which is just a hole in the ground that collects water
1:37
And the cattle walk in it and they do their business in it and so it gets pretty muddy and manure-y
1:43
Cattle are very tough animals though and they'll put up with this
1:48
They'll survive and it won't really make them obviously sick. But the cleaner the water cattle can drink the better off they're going to be
1:58
Studies do show that they do better, they grow better with clean water as opposed to muddy hole in the ground water
2:07
But I just think it's a better way to treat them. I think they would prefer that water
2:11
And that's kind of our system here. The water trough is located in an area of pasture that doesn't grow any grass
2:22
As you can see we're on Manitoulin Island and limestone bedrock is never far away
2:26
So I figured that this little corner of our pasture would be a great place to put some water troughs
2:33
Because the troughs bring a lot of traffic and we're not losing any useful soil here
2:41
By having the cattle come on the rock because it's pretty tough and can withstand their hoof traffic
