Water tanks

[Marsha Cassada]

A have a small water tub in one of my pastures. I don't check it every day, just refill it when I confine the horses in that area. Went out to fill up the tub and found a drowned rat in it. Someone suggested keeping a piece of wood floating in tanks so animals that fall in can escape.

Coming upon a rat sitting on a floating board might scare me worse than finding one drowned. And I doubt a horse would drink out of a small tub with a live rat floating in it.

I've had mice in them before, but this is my first rat. A giant frog leaped out of one recently.

Anyone else find varmints in their water tubs?

 

[always learning]

Had mice in both inside and outside tubs. Found a dead crow in the outside tub one morning, had to dump it out and replace with fresh water. Very aggravating since I had just filled it the night before. Worst was a huge spider (very alive) floating in the inside tub, I used a bucket to catch it and water and threw it outside.

 

[Rocklone Miniature Horses]

Had a mouse once. Broke my heart. They are vermin but I don't wish a long drawn out death for any animal which is why I control them with cats and dogs. Quick and natural. I have never found one in my water basin though, the one I found was in a bucket.

 

[lucky seven]

I have found a few dead sparrows in our 2 water buckets, that and their droppings.

 

[Ryan Johnson]

In one of my smaller paddocks I have a tub that I fill when I'm using that particular yard. This is the one tub for some reason that always seems to attract animals/ birds to it. Where its positioned its right near two others that are automatic fillers and for some reason (maybe the pump) Im yet to be surprised by anything. I have found a dead birds, a rabbit and I did see a snake a couple of years back , who was hanging around the troughs , he took off thank goodness when he heard me coming.

I now check all mine morning and night. Ive heard of putting wood across the top and also winding rope around the top and tying a rock to the ends of the rope so animals have something to pull themselves out , but I also worry that one of my horses or minis may get into trouble and Im not willing to risk it.

 

[amysue]

I screw a flat plank across the top of my tubs at the back so criters can climb out. My big tubs have automatic floats so I do not have to worry about the water level dropping. In my small paddocks, I use small oval troughs that need refilled 2x day. I often rescue birds, mice and even the occasional frog. Worst ever was when i dumped a tub to save a baby raccoon and she bit me and I had to get rabies shots (ouch!). My husband fits covers on top of the cow waterers with holes for them to drink out of. It keeps the tubs cleaner and surprisingly varmint free.

 

[Minimor]

I have two big tanks that I don't want anything (birds or cats) drowning in-- I have had birds drown in my smaller water tubs (Rubber maid garbage cans)--so I have 2x4s in the water . They float when the tub is full--one end rests on the edge of the tub. As the water level goes down so does the one end of the 2x4--anything g falls into the water it can get on the board and climb out. The only trouble is--it attracts birds. On hot days one tank becomes a big birdbath. So--the horses have one tub and the birds use the other

 

[Miniv]

We find drowned sage rats and birds......usually in our biggest troughs, of course.........which means it takes two of us to dump out.

 

[paintponylvr]

At one of the trainer barns I was at, we had daily issues with mice/small rats drowning in the water buckets in specific stalls.

Thankfully, I've not had to deal with it much w/ any critters lately. I DID, one summer drought, have to deal with snakes coming up into the troughs. Learned real quick not to put my hands automatically into a tank w/o checking - especially in the evenings when I came home from work! That was the year I invested int he small headlamps from Lowes! They sure do go thru the batteries, though.

Rubbermaid stock tanks have holes already "punched" into them to attach a bar or board across them. The old steel stock tanks (oval) used to always come with a bar installed - if the tank was full - a critter that fell in could get out. BUT we had our cats get frozen to those one winter in CO (same winter that we had the Thanksgiving Snow that crippled the state around the Denver area, I think), so we removed those bars... Those were automatic filling tanks and sometimes I really wish I had those here instead of having to haul/drain hoses all the time. Even had one full size horse lose part of his tongue after licking that bar and getting stuck. He pulled away while I was heading his direction...

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AMYSUE!!! Did you have a new baby you aren't telling us about? Or are you using an older pic in your "new" avatar?

 

[MiniNHF]

When we had our boarding facility I would find more then often birds in there, mostly black birds/starlings and an occasional mouse. I would just dump it and then give it a good scrub to disinfect it and fill er up.

 

[AngC]

Crows.

They rape my fruit trees and carry the spoils to our horsey water dishes (to wash the food product?) And there's some moron a few properties over, that feeds bread to the crows. They wash/drop the bread in the horse water dishes and poop all over the edges of the water dish. There's been days where I change their water out 3 or 4 times a day.

I like most birds; I love my hootey-owl; I like my blue jays (---read that they eat slugs) But, crows are targets.

 

[amysue]

I agree with you Ang, I dislike crows, they crap on everything and decimate my grain corn while we wait for it to dry down in the field. Had a neighbor who used to feed the wildlife, she even had names for her deer, coons, feral cats etc. We kept the ammo supplier in business that year. Plus I find more large birds drowned in my tubs than I find anything else.

Paula, that's Whiskey's colt "Rowdy" foaled Aug 8. Figured that the avatar could use an update. Have acquired a few new critters this summer, once I clean up and resize pics, I'll post them.

A friend showed me her nifty thrifty trough device. She floats a lid to a Styrofoam cooler in her big tank and often "rescues" small animals and birds on it. I asked if her cows played with it, because I know mine would, she said that she tied it to a piece of string and attached that to a weight so it stays in the middle where they can't reach it.

 

[chandab]

I know our cows hate black birds, any black bird, crows, starlings, etc; if they are black, they are hated by the cows. I usually just find the occasional small bird or mouse in my tanks, just scoop, dump and refill.

 

[Barnmother]

When I ran a boarding stable I know I found a couple of stall that could regularly drown rats, sometimes three in a night. Ick!!! This summer we have had trouble with the stock tank in one pasture drowning squirrels. I always worry that I won't see them and the horses won't drink the water. We have limited water from our well so dumping troughs even once a week is not really an option. We pretty much have to do one every weeks which means they only get totally scrubbed and cleaned once a month.

 

[AngC]

I forgot to say: crows also leave oily slicks on the water. ...nasty.

Perhaps, because our water dishes are those smaller, rubber-y ones, 8 gallons I think? vice big stock tanks ...we haven't had any problem with dead rodents or drowned birds in them.

But today I had a freak-fit. I found a dead rat in the girls' stall. eeby-jeeby!!! I didn't even notice; normally the girls don't poop in the stall. This dead treat was underneath a bit of their lunch hay (I should have been more aware; they don't pass up any lunch whatsoever, so that should have alerted me.) I just forked it into my bucket without paying attention, until I was letting myself out and the dead rat tail brushed against the back of my hand. ewwww! yuck!!!

We don't use poison bait here. (I figure if I can't confront directly, I shouldn't be killing, not to mention neighbors' dogs sometimes get loose.) I am somewhat concerned, because I think somebody around here is using poison bait. That's ok for them, I guess, but I'm concerned that Baby may have played with the dead rat (if anyone was going to, it would be her.) Hopefully, Baby can't ingest any sort of rat poison from playing with a dead one? I don't know. That's the third dead rat, we've found in the last couple months. The other two were nowhere near the horse stalls.

 

[always learning]

Any cats around? Sometimes they'll kill a rat and just leave it.. I'm just suggesting maybe it didn't die of poison. I had an Arab ( in my younger years) that had a real aversion to other animals around his grain, I saw him grab one of the barn cats and throw it out of his dish (fortunately cat had very loose skin). Or your rat could have been stepped on and died. If it had just crawled there to die of poison, I believe she'd have had to eat the stomach contents to get any of the poison in her system, and that's very unlikely.

 

[AngC]

Any cats around? Sometimes they'll kill a rat and just leave it... [snip]

...I believe she'd have had to eat the stomach contents to get any of the poison in her system, and that's very unlikely.

No cats; everyone around here that used to have cats moved. I got the husband to dispose of the rat, but before it went; I had him dangle it by its tail so I could examine it. It looked like it just died; I couldn't see any indications that it had been bitten, mauled, etc.
I was also thinking it unlikely that any of our horses could have been exposed to rat poison (unless, they ripped into the varmint, which they didn't.) The other two dead rats we found (both went under our trucks for their final sleep, also, didn't have any indication they had been attacked.) We don't feed grain, but some of our neighbors do, and they've told me in the past, that they had problems with rats.

Rats give me the creepies. I guess I associate them with the plague or other diseases. ...not a visitor I want around here.

 

[Jean_B]

I have found everything from rats, to squirrels, to mice in my water tanks. Heck, the best rodent control is water. In fact, I'm installing a bucket with a spinner coated in peanut butter and ramp so that they will go up, try to get to the peanut butter, and then fall off into the 3 inches of water. Cruel? Heck no. Much quicker than poison and I don't have to worry about the barn cats eating a mouse that contains poison. (most rodent bait is in fact a blood thinner, causing them to bleed out internally.....so if a cat eats it.....they could suffer the same fate.)

 

[misty'smom]

For the past 3 years before I got my heated water bucket I found mice that had drowned overnight in their water bucket in their stall!! It was 2-3 nights in a row this happened, then I didn't find anymore until the next year. Not sure why they went down in the water bucket, there are other places they could find water to drink that were safer and easier for them to drink???? So we shall see if it happens again this year??? Last year was my first yr with a heated bucket and I didn't put it out until we started having temps below freezing every night. So until we have temps at 32 degrees or lower most nights I won't use the heated bucket. I have to say it's kind of yucky finding a mouse that drowned in their bucket at the crack of dawn!!!!!!!' Then having to dump it!!!!!!! Not what I want to see before my coffee

 

[Jean_B]

If the horses dribbled a bit of grain in the water bucket, the mice will go in after it.