How to Clean a Horse's Water Trough

Cleaning out your horse's water trough or bucket may seem a fairly easy task, but it requires more than common sense. Keeping your water source disease-free and accessible to your horses requires frequent attention and daily maintenance.

Difficulty: Easy

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• A large scrub brush
• Non-toxic liquid soap
• A clean water source

Don't Just Add Water!

1. 
   Mosquito Eggs Commonly Contaminate Horses' Water

   Give buckets and troughs a quick but thorough scrub every time. Horse owners too often neglect their horses' water supply altogether or simply top off a bucket full of dirty water. While some saliva and chewed-up hay leftovers will inevitably show up in horses' water, other debris like sand, dirt, algae, feces, bird droppings and insect eggs are common and can be dangerous to their health.

2. With some observation, you will get a sense of how quickly your horses drink down their water. Depending upon the size of your water trough and the number of horses using it, you will need to clean it every 1-2 days. Take care to fill it only as necessary to avoid bailing extra water when you need to move the trough out for cleaning. It can be heavier than you think!

3. Never simply dump old water into the turnout or around the area where the trough sits. It should be dragged (or lifted if you have a helper) to an area the horses cannot access.

4. Use a small amount of clean water and a few squirts of liquid soap along with a stiff brush to scrub the entire inner surface of the trough. I like to use a natural-fiber body brush such as you would use to groom your horse. It covers large areas quickly, doesn't scratch and dries quickly. Pay attention to corner grooves and seams, as algae can easily go unnoticed there.

5. Rinse it thoroughly with clean water until all suds are gone and the water rinses clear. You can now drag the trough back to its place in the stall or turnout and fill it with fresh water for drinking. I recommend starting the water level at about half-full to start, and then adjust as you notice how much water your horses are drinking per day.

Tips & Warnings

• Standing water serves as a breeding ground for disease-carrying insects such as mosquitoes. Keep an eye out for small particles floating on the surface of the water which are actually clusters of mosquito eggs. If left unnoticed, the eggs will hatch within a day into tiny worm-like larvae which dart and swim beneath the surface in swarms. You don't want your horse ingesting these in either form, so bail and clean your trough as soon as you notice them appear.