Ponds

[Lizzie]

Reble's very sad loss, prompted me to write a bit about ponds. A friend of mine, lost her beautiful yearling Shire colt, a couple of years ago. He had waded into the pond in his pasture and become stuck in the mud. He was a big, strong colt and one would have thought, would have been easily able to free himself.

Even though few in S. California have ponds, we do hear on the news fairly often, about animals being rescued and sometimes lost, when getting into trouble in them. Ponds - frozen over or not, can spell trouble for animals. Just a thought for those of you with ponds in pastures where you keep animals.

Lizzie

 

[Riverrose28]

Such a sad story, the people accross the road from us have cattle only and one of their heifers went onto their pond and broke her pelvis when she fell. It took alot of people to get her back to shore and then she had to be put down. They then fenced off the pond but left them acess to the creek. So sad what happened to Reble and her deer, these things happen so fast with animals, what a shame for all. I'm at least glad that she and her hubby are alright, it could have been a tragidy for all involved.

 

[Minimor]

I agree; I've known too many people who have lost livestock to ponds, dugouts and sloughs--animals can get stuck in the mud, they can fall through the ice and drown, they can slip on the ice & suffer a broken pelvis. I know someone that had their dugout fenced off with rails so that the cattle couldn't get into the water--the idea was they should stick their heads through the rails to drink. Well, one heifer slipped, or was crowded & pushed by other animals) and got partly through the rails. She was hanging over the rail by her hips & of course drowned.

 

[Marsha Cassada]

Hundreds of thousands of cattle and horses and wild life have used farm ponds. Everything is a risk. For every animal found mired, there are thousands of animals that need the ponds for existence. Doing away with ponds is not the answer.

Our local ponds last year had an extra risk. They got so low that there was more mud for the animal to wade through to get to water. I checked for my horses several times a day while our pond was so low. Never even saw their hoof marks near the edge. They prefered their tubs of fresh, cool water.

I would rather the coyotes, bobcats and racoons went down to the pond to drink than come into my corrals for water.

I worry a little about thin ice, but so far my horses are not interested in experimenting with slippery footing.

 

[Riverrose28]

I so agree with Marsha on having the wildlife drink from the ponds and streams, we have a small pond on our property that we dug out just for the wildlife, I got tired of the animals drinking from the water tubs, but it is also in an area that my livestock can't get to. Even after we put in the pond though, year before last we had a drought and the buzzerds would drink out of water tubs, so I had to scrub them every day as I was so worried about salminella. The cattle farm across the way fenced off their pond but left access to the creek for their cattle, so far no mishaps. I think ice is the major accident when dealing with water. We also fenced off our septic area so the stock couldn't get to it, as last year one of our neighbors had a horse fall through the ground over theirs and they had to haul the poor thing out with a tractor, but horse was scrapped up but OK. Experience is the best teacher. These same people put their tractor in their run in for the night because of bad weather, and a piece of hay caught on fire when it touched the hot muffler, They lost the whole building and all of thier winter hay. Accidents seem to happen all the time, such a shame.

 

[Minimor]

Yes, of course accidents can happen anywhere, in all sorts of circumstances. I'm not sure that parking a tractor in a place where the exhaust can touch some hay which can then be ignited and burn the entire building down is what I call an accident...just as I would not consider it an accident if I had an unfenced pond in my pasture & the horses walked out on the ice, fell through & drowned. That would be completely my fault for being careless in not keeping the horses off the ice.

Most certainly ponds are an important water source for wildlife and livestock...but many people now fence off their ponds/dugouts and pump the water into a trough for the livestock to drink. Wildlife obviously fend for themselves, whether they choose to drink out of the pond or if they go to someone's trough instead. Wildlife is one thing, stock is another. Here people are not allowed to have their livestock drink from streams, creeks or rivers--cattle (and probably horses--in most cases the cattle farmers are the ones affected by this law) must be fenced off away from the water. The rivers & creeks can be used as a water source but only if the water is pumped out to a trough as the cattle cannot be within a certain distance of the water.