Posted 2020-09-23 11:00 AM Subject: RE: Automatic waterers/cement/gravel pads
Lived to tell about it and will never do it again
Posts: 5408
We have 4 of the mirafount two ball automatic waterers and love them. You just pour a concrete pad with a hole in the middle for the heat source and lines to come into. We made ours a foot or two bigger all the way around the waterer. They are the best thing since sliced bread!
Ritchie waterers on an above ground cement pad. Middle of 4 pens for horses/ cows and more protection. Have the ability to place in chip board with insulation for the very very cold days. Get a good quality waterer.... You will spend more time and money replacing parts and fixing lines if you dont.
I like having them raised and protected for cattle, they tend to beat them up.
One of the waters that the cattle use sits where the ground washes out under the pad so I do have lots of gravel around that one. The other ones just have the concrete pad with regular ground around them. The mirafounts use a ground heat source so you don't have to put anykind of heater in them at all. Every now and then when it is really really cold they might get a glaze of ice on the top but nothing so thick that it can't be pushed through.