Animals need access to clean water.
Yet, it is not uncommon to see warm, stagnant water in troughs on farms around the country.
It’s a situation that Chris Grieger is working to change with his innovative business Aquatrough.
Aquatrough offers solar pumping systems that can be added to livestock troughs. The pumping systems come in two sizes and are an affordable solution with prices starting at $380.
With some 25 years’ experience in agriculture, Mr Grieger saw the need for a system to improve the quality of animals’ drinking water.
As the owner of CG Rural, a business that sold galvanized troughs, he was concerned to see many farmers using copper sulfate tablets to kill algae in troughs.
“I started researching other options to reduce algae and along the way learned a lot about water quality,” he said.
“Trough water deteriorates very quickly with feed droppings, saliva, dust impurities, e-coli, algae and more.
“Water is the main nutrient for all animals and while enormous resources are spent every year on feed nutrition none is funneled towards water quality, so I decided to do something about it.”
Mr Grieger designed a pump system that aerates, oxygenates and filters water in troughs.
He said trails had shown the system vastly improved water quality.
“The Croc Trough pump system has been extensively tested at cattle and sheep feedlots and paddocks – and the results are astonishing,” he said.
“When we installed our Croc Trough pump system, we found cattle and sheep increased water uptake significantly and drank mainly from the trough fitted with our Croc Trough pump system.
“During a trial with beef cattle in a feedlot, the trial cattle’s overall weight gain was 12.6kg higher than that of the control cattle.
“At the same time, control cattle feeding intake was 63kg less than the trial cattle.”
Aquatrough is just one of the many innovative businesses the Agtech and Logistics Hub has worked with to help bring solutions to producers and growers.
To learn more about Aquatrough, visit https://croctroughpumps.com.au/