metal water troughs

[Black Points]

Just wondering if anyone with metal water troughs has found that their horses don't like to drink out of them...

I had the rubbermade troughs for years but our water has lots of iron in it and also the iron bacteria. Since the well is artesian, I can't treat it with bleach and kill the bacteria...may kill some but the bleach dilutes so fast that I can't get it to make it really work. Problem was that the rubber troughs got really orange and scummy within a week or less and cleaning them is a pain. I would use a pressure washer and bleach but could never get them to wear they would keep the water clean for long...a big problem in the winter when it's hard to empty a 100 gal tank every few days..the bacteria loved growing in the heated water and of course I had to keep the tank at least half full to keep the heater covered.

Anyway, I decided that the problem might well be that the bacteria had set up shop in the rough surface of the rubbermade trough and that was why I could never get rid of them. So I bought a nice 100 gal metal tank from Tractor Supply and spent lots of $ putting in a new iron filter in the barn. When I fill the metal tank, the water looks so clean and stays that way for weeks..but the horses don't drink it. They will be out all day and come in and immediately empty their water buckets.

Anyone else run into a problem like this? I can only assume that there is some metal taste to the water that they don't like but I can't add salt to it because it will corrode the metal and I don't want to add sugar because that will encourage other things to grow in it.

Would love to hear some ideas about this problem.

TIA

Mary in western NY
http://www.bpequine.com

[alabama]

My gelding won't drink from my 100 gal. metal tank. I tried using it when I'd turn him out solo (mare was in the dry lot). He wouldn't touch it. He'd come in at night and suck down as much water from the rubbermaid tub as he could get.

[secretariat]

I've had more problems with the Rubbermaid than the metal.

If you've put in a new filter, maybe they miss the taste of the iron!

[jen-s]

Ours won't touch their metal trough. Period. Ever. They will wait until they come in or are let into a side paddock with a large rubbermaid one. So we've had to resort to allowing them into the paddock at will. Ponies 1. Humans 0.

[dmalbone]

Yep, one of mine hates metal and wont drink from it. Silly ponies. I've just resorted to using cheapo muck buckets and refilling them more often (only have two horses). The slick surface cleans off MUCH easier than the rubbermaid.

[goodhors]

Any chance of electric bleed from the fence? Could be that drinking from the metal tank completes a circut when horse touches water? Horses react to even TINY bits of electric leakage, stuff you can't feel. You might have to get an electrician to work on this, find the problem. Poor grounding is a real common cause of electric problems in fences and traveling thru the ground to horse hooves in wet dirt. Really sounds like the problem, if horses drink same water from the buckets.

I would salt the horses grain, get them more thirsty.

I would not add anything except flavor to the water and buckets. Something like mint juice or jello, strong flavors from the candy section in baking, that would add smell and maybe some flavor to the water in both tank and buckets. You ARE using the same water in both places, right? Metal tank is the only difference? With masking smell and taste, maybe horse will get used to the new tank soon. I like the metal tanks, much easier to keep clean.

[Bluey]

All our horses for decades drank out of all kinds of metal and some concrete tanks without any problem.
Right now, by chance, they have fiberglass tanks to drink from and they still drink without problems.

I would look a little further, as the tank being metal may not be the real reason.

[kookicat]

Rue loves drinking from metal troughs, but Asp won't drink from them at all.