Any of you guys out there ever make or create a watering hole for animals??? How did it work out???? How did you do it???? I have hunting land on top of a mountain and when it gets dry or hasn't rained in a while the animals leave. Is it possible/practical to create a watering hole where they can get a drink and have them actually use it???? Thanks in advance for any info.
Man made watering hole????
- Thread starter msinc
- Start date
I would look for a natural spring and if you can find one dig it out good enough to create a watering hole. The bigger you dig it the more water you will have.
Thanks for the replies so far!!! The fella that has the land next to mine has a spring and he intends to dig it out and try that. In my case I am on top of the mountain and there is no water except what comes out of my well. What I was going to try is maybe one of those goldfish or garden pond liners like from Lowe's and as above run a hose to it and just fill it up when I'm there. I know animals can be picky about where or what they drink so I was just wondering before I went thru the motions if they would even use it.
May be a little more complicated than you want but they work well in the arid west. Wildlife guzzlers
An old cattle water tank works well too. Bury it halfway in the ground. I filled it up and then mother nature keeps it filled. I have alot of game cam pics of deer using it. Surprising how popular it is. Especially mid summer when water sources seem to dry up. Only bad part is that it seems stagnant during summer/fall months. Guess it doesn't bother the deer cause they use it. Think leaves and debris cause that odor.
TheOtherZilla
Pull my finger
I saw one made out of a plastic kiddy wading pool..Came across while out and about in the hills
If you keep water in it so that it stays there it should work just fine. Where you have well water you don't have to worry about chlorine and such. Good luck!!
Another great idea. Those will crack once winter weather freezes the water solid if you live in a state where it gets that cold during winter. Just an fyi.
jsn
Gold $$ Contributor
Someone I know used to create ponds in flowing streams. This was some years ago, probably not legal now depending. Lack of clay use as a liner usually led to a quick failure to creat a pond. It depends on what the soil/rock composition is, but on top of your mountain water will be subject to gravity, just like everything else.
An old or new stock tank will work. Here there is very little surface water so our deer and varmints use windmill tanks for water. You might want to put some kind of weight in whatever you use cause when empty a tank can & will blow away!
Sodium Bentonite is your Friend. This is what we use in the Drilling Industry. You can make large or small ponds that will hold water by creating a deep or Shallow pond using Sodium Bentonite chips that will hold the water in. It can be purchased in 50 and 100 poind bags. Depending on soil type will depend on how much is needed per Square Foot of Pond.
Russel
Russel
Yes sir, the only other issue I might have is that the well water on top that mountain does have a lot of iron...I mean, I can and certainly do drink it and it isn't bad. In fact its kind of like taking an iron supplement and makes you feel pretty good after about a day or so. But I don't know how the deer/bear are gonna take to it...I know they can smell a lot better than we can and probably taste too.
This is a good idea...takes a little doing, but once completed it kind of takes care of itself with very little maintenance required. I kind of thought about something similar. I was thinking about putting rain gutters on the cabin, it's 42' X 32' and running them to a spill over tank. I could have the tank a fair distance from the cabin too, as 90% of the land slopes down away from it.
Yep, we have a few stock tanks sitting around on the father in laws farm...good idea about the wind...I would have donated the tank to the neighbors in the first wind storm!!!! At 3300 ft of elevation, it tends to get a little whippy up there!!
Everything is illegal in this communist democrat state.....I think only well drillers can purchase and possess this stuff. Farmers were using it to shore up their ponds at one time, but the state figured it was somehow getting into the bay. Those people don't make much sense to me...years ago they said ponds filtered out pollution and encouraged them, in fact they would pay 87% of the cost to have one dug. Now, no more ponds...it about takes an act of god to legally dig a pond in Maryland. They decided that "surface filtration" was the way to go. Instead of seeing sediment ponds now for storm water management they have a several acre field that the water is directed to.
Tried 15 years ago to get a pond permit and was told to first get on the 2 year waiting list with the Army Corps of Engineers.
That is one more reason to keep water in it as it will become more natural as it sits and gets rained in. Bugs get in it animals will get in it ect,ect.
And I sure do know what you mean by iron water as some of the wells I have had sure had it. One of them was so bad I used to have to take all the screens out of the faucets and washer once a month to clean out all the deposits. Man that one was bad. The others I kinda liked.
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