WATERING PLACE IN A CREEK.
wooden platformFig. 145.—A Clean Watering Place.
Fig. 145.—A Clean Watering Place.
Fig. 145.—A Clean Watering Place.
Cattle naturally select a certain place in a water-course to drink at, where the bank is not precipitous. During a good part of the year this bank is muddy, on account of its moisture and trampling of the animals. As a result, the horses get the scratches, the cows come to the milking pen with muddy udders, and frequently animals are injured by the crowding in the mud. Hogs are often seriously injured, because the mud becomes so deep and tough, that they are well nigh helpless in it. Another objection is that the animals wade to the middle of the creek, and soon make its bottom as muddy as the bank, and the water becomes unfit for drinking. The arrangement shown in our illustration, which may be built of heavy plank, brick, or flat stones, prevents all this. Itis constructed by first making an incline to a level platform for the animals to stand on while drinking. This plane terminates in an abrupt descent, forming a trough for the water to flow through. The trough should not be more than two feet wide, that the animals may easily get across it. The level floor permits the animals to drink at their ease, often a matter of importance. Such a drinking place should be made at the upper end of the creek, where it passes through a field to prevent the animals from soiling the water by standing in it above where they drink.