Below is a video on How To Make A Pig Waterer
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Today we will be showing you how to make a pig waterer out of a barrel. Were are going to be using a Food grade 55 gallon drum. Some things you are going to need to complete this project are one or two pig waterer nipples, teflon tape, soft thread sealant, 15/16 spade or paddle bit and a drill to use it in.
The first thing we need to do is figure out where we want to drill the holes. On this one we are building we decided to use two and go a few inches off the bottom of the barrel. We are going to space them out so two pigs can use the waterer at the same time.
So we’ll go ahead and put the 15/16 spade bit into the drill and make the hole. Once we have the hole drilled we can grab the pig waterer nipple and apply some teflon tape to it. Well do 3-4 wraps around. Next we can apply small amount of the soft thread sealant around the edge of the water nipple.
Once we have the teflon tape and thread sealant on it we can thread the water nipple into the barrel by hand making sure to align it so it goes straight into the barrel and apply inward pressure as we thread it in. Once we have it had tight we can grab a wrench that fits the nut of the water nipple and snug it up. For this one it will be a 27mm wrench. So we will snug it up so that the nut ends up touching the barrel. Keep in mind which way you want the water nipple to face on the last turn. Our barrel is upside down so that’s why we put our this way.
Now that we have the first water nipple installed we can go ahead and install the second one repeating the process. We are drilling out next hole about a foot and a half away from our first one. We want to make it so two pigs can use it at once and we plan to put the barrel in the corner of our fence and strap it to our corner post ensuring that the pigs can’t knock it over.
So once we drill the hole with the 15/16 spade bit we can go ahead and apply our teflon tape and soft thread sealant to the water nipple. Then we can go ahead and thread it in. These are the STINGY brand and ¾ in size.
So if you have one that you can’t get in or have a hard time getting started you can use the correct size/ same size tap as the water nipple and run that through the barrel to make threads and make it easier to thread in the water nipple. Another way to do it if you don’t have the correct size tap is to get a bolt the same thread and pitch as the water nipple. Next you can put some gloves on and grab the bolt with some channel lock pliers or vise grips and then grab a torch and heat the bolt ½ way up the threads and then thread that into the barrel. That should kind of melt some threads into the barrel making it easier to thread in the water nipple. If you do use the bolt method its a good idea to let the barrel cool for a bit after you thread the bolt into it before threading in the water nipple.
So now that we have the second waterer nipple threaded into the bucket we’ll wait a little bit to let the soft thread sealant setup. Then we can figure out where we want to place the bucket/ barrel within the pig pen. We are going to set the barrel on top of a cinder block to get the right height for the pigs and in the corner so we can strap it to the corner post. Then we’ll grab the hose and fill it up.
So here is the pig waterer in the pig pen being used by our baby pigs. As you can see they quickly figure it out and start using it. You will also see that even 8 months or so later the water barrel is still holding up just fine even though those baby pigs are now 200+ pounds now.
So that’s it we have shown you how to make a pig waterer or automatic pig waterer.
