How Many Animals Can You Get On One Automatic Waterer?

Automatic waterers are an amazing way to ensure your animals stay hydrated. They’re low maintenance, self-cleaning, and easy for animals to figure out and drink as they need. But how many animals can you get on one automatic waterer? Is there such a thing as too many, or is it safe and reasonable to expect multiple animals to share one?

Cleanliness Concerns

The more animals that drink from an automatic waterer, the dirtier it gets. Right? Well, with automatic waterers, they self-clean. No standing water means no opportunity for algae to grow, which makes the waterer itself cleaner. Also, because there is no standing water, there is no place for mosquitos or flies to lay their eggs, which means your livestock won’t be drinking larvae with their water. This lessens the chances of sickness for your animals. If you have multiple animals, this is especially important.

Similarly, no standing water means automatic waterers can handle the grass and dirt and slobber of multiple animals. While the dirt and slobber can get washed away, the grass is too large and typically stays in the bowl until an animal goes to drink again, when they’ll eat said grass. If there is too much, then you would need to clean the bowl either by making the water levels overflow or with a cleaning cloth of some kind.

Equipment Maintenance

The more an automatic waterer gets used, the more it’s natural to worry about if it will break or need more frequent maintenance. Generally, automatic waterers are made to be hardy and low maintenance. They can handle cribbing and being shared, which helps with how many animals you can get on one automatic waterer, since they are strong enough to withstand the usage of multiple animals.

When wondering how many animals can you get on one automatic waterer, there’s often the concern about how many animals are needed to keep them working, too. If there is one animal, and they don’t use it as much, what if it freezes in the winter? Some automatic waterers require multiple animals to drink from them in order to keep them from freezing. Bar Bar A’s don’t, so that one horse can drink from it without it freezing. With multiple animals, the waterer most certainly won’t freeze.

Usage Rates

How much water can the automatic waterer provide? Is it enough for the animals? An average horse drinks around 10 gallons of water a day. That’s a lot! Can they handle multiple animals drinking this much? Automatic waterers are usually connected to waterlines, so yes, they can handle this. Plus, in winter months, there’s no ice to break through in order to get to the water, and in summer, the water isn’t too hot. This makes them easy and convenient for your animals to drink from, providing drinkable water for one or multiple animals, any time of year.

However, if there is only one waterer and there are a lot of animals, multiple of which are trying to drink at the same time, that poses a problem. You don’t want a crowd around the waterer and you don’t want your animals fighting over it. You want to make sure that there are enough waterers for all of your animals, to keep this from happening.

So, How Many Animals Can You Get On One Automatic Waterer?

In order to ensure all animals are receiving fresh, clean water, Bar Bar A recommends that one unit will water up to 1-25 animals. 

Bar Bar A’s automatic waterer will keep your animals provided with fresh, clean water to ensure they’re healthy and hydrated. To learn more about caring for your animals or about automatic waterers, contact our team at Bar Bar A!