Nose pumps
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antares1 ...@comwares.net (JMartin)
Has anyone used these?
I am thinking of installing some to draw water from a pond and creek.
There's no power out there. Solar seems too expensive and probably wouldn't work too well out here. Nose pumps seem to be the answer, but I don't know if they really work.
Thanks Jena
"John Gilmer" gil...@crosslink.net
Never heard of "nose pump." There is a thing called the hydralic ram.
It can take a relatively large volume of water with a small head the pump a small volume of water far above the original head.
They work.
Janet Baraclough janet.and.j...@zetnet.co.uk
Wossa nose pump?
Here, where there's no power people use a hydraulic, water-powered ram pump to get water to the house from a river or spring. There are ram pumps operating in this area which have been running for a hundred years or more without a problem.
Janet (Scotland).
j ...@okranatel.net (John A. Stanley)
A Google search leads me to believe they're pumps driven by cattle noses. For example: http://www.frostfreenosepumps.com/ Learn something new every day, eh?
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John A. Stanley Remove delicious mucilaginous vegetable to email
"ben williams" bwillia...@nc.rr.com
The video is wild :) OTOH what he says he wants to do with it has nothing in common with these pumps.
Agree with the rest, rampumps are the best bet for what he wants.....
ben
"Steve Dunlop" dun...@bitstream.net
I don't have the URLs anymore but there are a couple good writeups. There are also some treadle pumps that are foot operated.
What I remember from my reading is that they work well for mature cows, with a number of caveats. Some individual animals have more trouble getting used to them than others.
Calves have trouble since they aren't big enough to run the pump by the time they are old enough to need water. The pumps are fairly stationary so you end up with a muddy weedy mess after a year of the cows using them in one spot.
And they're expensive.
I remember reading that hogs are "engineers." In hot weather they will operate nose pumps continuously so as to make a pool of mud to cool off in (I think the treadle type are used for hogs).
Anyway, we graze a stream, and after weighing the alternatives, decided to let the cattle into the stream to drink. It works fine and doesn't cause damage to the streambanks provided that access is managed rotationally, so that the gr***es on the banks have a chance to recover. Some cattle owners make a concrete or gravel ford for the cattle to use. The Wisconsin state extension web site has a nice article on streamside grazing and the pros and cons environmentally.
Our second choice (letting the cows into the stream having been the first) was to get one of the new, little gasoline powered pumps and use it to fill a stock tank every morning. There are some nice, light centrifugal pumps made with the sort of miniature gasoline motors used on weed whackers and chainsaws.
They look handy and weigh only 40 pounds or so. Since we check the cows every morning anyway, it would have been no big deal to start the pump and let it run for 10 minutes while we watch them.
The small, portable pumps can be removed from the grazing area each day if theft is a concern.
Such as setup would have cost around $500 ($300 for the pump and $200 for the tank, and a token amount for some cheap water hose). That's about the price of two nose pumps.
And this setup would be portable, work for cows of all ages, and would have other uses as well.
The nail in the coffin for nose pumps, for us, was the thought of having a system that would work for all the cows in the herd but the one that was too stubborn to use it. Then what?
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Steve ...
antares1 ...@comwares.net (JMartin)
A nose pump is a device that is cattle operated. There is a small amount of water in a bowl. To get the water, the cow has to move a lever out of the way. When they move the lever, they operate the pump.
Big disadvantages are they don't work in the winter (if it freezes), and calves can't operate them.
Advantages are they are relatively cheap, require no power, are easy to install and move from pasture to pasture. They can pull water up from a well, or from a pond or stream. Not too far, but far enough to keep the cattle out of them. One pump will water 25-30 cows. Of course, this is what is says on paper, but I don't know about real life.
The streams I have don't have enough flow for a ram pump. Right now, they are barely trickling. I can find deep holes where the water can be drawn for nose pumps, but the flow won't do a ram, I don't think.
Jena
Don Bruder dak...@sonic.net
Ummm...
Can we say "Darwin in action"?
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Don Bruder - dak...@sonic.net <--- Preferred Email - unmunged I will choose a path that's clear: I will choose Free Will! - N. Peart Notice: My former ( dak...@primenet.com / Dak...@aaahawk.com ) addresses are now defunct. Mail sent to either address WILL NOT BE SEEN.
"Steve Dunlop" dun...@bitstream.net
Yes, but what a h***le, and we'd rather cull for better reasons than inability to cope with a nose pump. So we move them all out to the remote pasture, away from all the facilities, unload them from the trailer. Whoops! next day one is obviously in trouble, now what? Pack up the corral panels, haul them, set them up, round up all the cows, sort off the ones that are doing ok, load the other one. Haul one cow to the auction where we get a crummy price because no one in their right mind buys a lone cow walking through the ring by herself.
Ordinarily we would cull in the fall based on the outcome of the preg checks. Around the same time we sell the steers and any heifers we don't want.
Steve ...
"Steve Dunlop" dun...@bitstream.net
Jena, Another thing to consider is just running water line from your well. Half inch black poly pipe costs around 10 cents a foot.
We have some runs totalling 1200 feet. Not much flow but enough to fill a stock tank, which is all we need. We don't bury the line, just run it along the fence on the ground, and drive over it with tractors, trucks, etc. where it crosses the road. Depending on how far away your pastures are from your water source, it might work as well as anything.
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Steve ...
antares1 ...@comwares.net (JMartin)
Steve, After doing some technical survey work on the pond with a fishing line(no hook, just a weight)....
I think I'm going to allow them access to the pond, but limited. At least for now. I can fence off half of it to the shore and they can wade in it, but they won't be able to get around the fence through the water, it gets too deep.
I suppose cows can swim, but I've never seen one do it willingly.
I am going to create two pastures back there this year and with a little fancy electrical fencing, I can let either side into the pond.
Next year I want to get more than two pastures. Then I will have to come up with different solutions, but for this year, I think simple is best, even if it mucks up half the pond banks.
Thanks for the advice and suggestions.
I don't think a cow would be too stubborn to use a nose pump though.
It would kind of be like one being too stubborn to eat. Of course, if they had a sore nose or something, that could be a problem.
My deciding factor is that they are useless in winter. Many things are useless in winter (including winter itself), but tanks and such are cheaper and really can be used in a pinch in the winter, but not the nose pumps. I just HATE draining hoses in the dead of winter!
Jena
Janet Baraclough janet.and.j...@zetnet.co.uk
Won't still pond water rapidly become a sump of shit, urine, churned up mud and the toxic summer algae that blooms in such high-fertility conditions?
Janet
ander ...@telusplanet.net (Ander)
There are now nosepumps available that will work YEAR ROUND! We have been using the frostfree nosepump on our farm for three winters in cold Alberta, Canada with great success. No heat, no power...just cow power. Check it out at www.frostfreenosepumps.com
dogsnus dogs...@micron.net
Okay, I think it's time to start another one of these threads, and... this one's for real.
I thought you'd all enjoy today's article in a today's local paper about city moving to country. It's real...
http://www.idahostatesman.com/story.asp?ID=16769 Here's the text if you don't have a browser, I hope it pastes okay.
Canyon County delivers message to urbanites Photo by Darin Oswald The Idaho Statesman Dan Silveria harvests wheat on his land south of Caldwell.
Mosquitoes come with the territory.
Cows, and the smell of manure, also are a part of rural life.
Dirt roads are, well, dirty. Your SUV will get dusty.
??? Q&A about the ??™Code of the West??™ ??? What does the ??™Code of the West??™ say?
??? Code of the West ??? Code of the West - Larimer County Planning This month, Canyon County joins its counterparts in Montana and Colorado in distributing a ???Code of the West??? tip sheet for city-turned-country folks.
Newcomers seeking building permits or utility access will get copies of the guide, produced through a $1,500 grant from the Canyon Agricultural Foundation Education, which points out that country living isn??t quite like city life.
The code isn??t an ordinance, it??s not a law, it??s not official, and no one voted for it. But the code??s authors ??” a handful of county officials, farmers, residents, developers and businesses ??” hope its tips and resources will help ease tensions caused by clashes between urban and rural values.
???Our intent was to simply inform (urban transplants) of as many things and as many possibilities as we can,??? said Jerry Neufeld, code coauthor and University of Idaho Canyon County extension educator.
???Hopefully, it will give them a few things to think about. The intent isn??t to stop them from moving.???
The code begins, ???It is important for you to know that life in the rural areas of the county is different from life in the city,??? but a lot of city folks don??t understand that, Canyon County Commissioner Matt Beebe said.
Beebe once got a call from a woman who said it was against the law for cow odors to leave a dairy??s property. Not only is that not the law, it??s a physical impossibility.
And with more and more newcomers, there??s more and more chance for conflicts and complaints.
Just a few years ago, seed farmer Dan Silveria could look across his fields four miles west of Caldwell and see mostly farmland. The area was sparsely populated 10 years ago, but between 1990 and 2000, the number of Canyon County residents has grown from 90,076 to 131,441. Now, Silveria looks out on rows of suburban homes.
???Urbanites don??t know about farmers, and farmers don??t know what (urbanites) are thinking,??? he said.
Ada County doesn??t have a code and isn??t contemplating one, but Ada officials hear many of the same complaints.
???As people move out to the country, they expect that they??re out in the country fresh air,??? Ada County Commissioner Grant Kingsford said. ???But that??s not the case.???
Heidi Mickelson of Nampa said she would have liked that sort of warning. The Seattle transplant didn??t learn about country life until after she made the move.
???I was used to smelling really clean air,??? she said. ???Now, we get breezes of cows and the sugar factory. I didn??t know until I lived here how bad the smells can be.???
Farmers struggle, too, often viewing the newcomers as a threat to an occupation and way of life that??s already difficult to maintain. And growers have learned that complaints about field burning, smelly fertilizers and crop dusting can mean tighter and more costly farming regulations.
???We think the more educated you are, the less you complain,??? Teri Ottens, county secretary for the Canyon County Farm Bureau, said.
But Robert Rychert said a code won??t solve the conflicts that emerge when urban sprawl meets rural life.
The Boise State University biology professor recently moved to Emmett for the open space and beautiful landscape ??” only to find a fly-infested home and conflict about what it means to be a good neighbor.
Rychert said poorly managed manure from a nearby chicken farm attracted swarms of flies. When he tried to solve the problem, he was told flies come with the territory. The Department of Environmental Quality eventually intervened, and the farmer changed some of his practices.
???Farmers want to maintain their old farming practices, while neighbors want to see a certain quality of life, too,??? he said.
The ???Code of the West??? would have warned Rychert about the flies. But he said it fails to mention that normal farming practices can pose a hazard to neighbors?? health.
???If it??s meant to be an informational pamphlet, then they need to say flies carry E. coli and mosquitoes carry viruses,??? he said. ???Ten to 50 percent of flies harbor E. coli. People think flies are a nuisance, but it??s a public health issue.???
He said the code, which touts Canyon County??s adherence to ???right to farm???
legislation, which protects farmers and ranchers from nuisance and liability lawsuits, serves them, but not others.
???We do have to be tolerant, but I want to see things done differently,??? he said. ???The new guy also has property rights and the right to a certain quality of life.???
Edition Date: 08-02-2002
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