Article Summary: Site troughs on raised pads, keep water flowing and scrubbed weekly, spread mineral tubs and move ring feeders on compacted pads, and watch stock behaviour alongside quarterly lab tests; these simple hygiene habits keep water and feed clean, cutting disease risk and boosting growth all year.
You work hard to grow quality pasture; protecting that investment means giving stock clean water and uncontaminated feed every day. Sound paddock hygiene limits disease, safeguards growth rates, and reduces the time and money you spend treating avoidable health issues. The practices below build a simple, repeatable routine that keeps your grazing system resilient throughout the year.
Water Sources – Positioning, Flow, and Regular Cleaning
Even the best‑quality water at the inlet can become a liability once it reaches the paddock, so start by thinking about where you place troughs. A level, well‑drained pad ideally surfaced with compacted gravel prevents animals from standing in the water and fouling it with soil or manure. When troughs sit lower than the surrounding ground, run‑off washes in during rain, carrying silt and nutrients that fuel algal growth. A raised pad that sheds water to all sides solves this before it starts.
Continuous turnover is just as important as location. A flow‑through design, where fresh water enters at one end and surplus spills over a short standpipe at the other, keeps the whole volume moving. Aim to replace the entire trough at least once a day during mild weather and twice in hot conditions when intakes spike. Where gravity feed is not practical, a timer‑controlled dump valve can achieve the same effect by draining the trough at set intervals and allowing it to refill.
Cleaning becomes quick when biofilm never has time to take hold. Once a week, empty the trough fully, scrub the walls with a stiff brush and a mild, food‑grade detergent, and rinse. When long summer days encourage algae despite these efforts, suspend a shade cloth a metre above the water; reducing light is often enough to halt growth without dosing copper sulphate or chlorine.
Mineral and Supplement Stations – Reducing Wear, Tear, and Transfer
Mineral blends and protein licks keep stock balanced, yet communal feed points invite mouth‑to‑mouth transfer of pathogens if they become crowded. A simple tweak multiple small tubs spaced along a fence line—spreads animals out and cuts the saliva load on every surface. Stock naturally drift between stations rather than pressing shoulder‑to‑shoulder around a single bin, which means fewer dung pats and less soil churned into mud.
Congestion also falls when you match the trough height to the class of animal. Calves need shallower dishes than cows; place age‑specific tubs in separate sections of the paddock to stop bullying and ensure timid animals still receive their share. Every two or three days, lift the tubs and set them on fresh ground. The previous spot can then dry, and any manure crust can be broken up with a light pass of the harrows to hasten decomposition.
If you hand‑mix minerals with a grain carrier, prepare only what stock will finish that day. Overnight weather softens grain, encouraging moulds that may produce mycotoxins. Keeping volumes small costs little extra time and maintains the supplement’s feed value.
Feeding Silage and Hay When Conditions Turn Wet
Winter rain quickly turns a generous bale of hay into a disease hotspot if it sits unprotected on soft soil. When paddocks are wet underfoot, shift from rolling bales out to using ring feeders placed on compacted pads. The metal skirt catches fines and stops animals trampling leaf into the mud, so more feed ends up in bellies rather than under hooves.
Mob size dictates pad design: leave room for half the mob to eat at once without pushing. Once the bale is consumed, tow the feeder to a new pad before the area churns. A short length of chain and a quad bike suffices on most farms. Returning to the vacant pad a week later with the harrows breaks up manure, incorporates wasted feed, and exposes parasite eggs to drying air and ultraviolet light. This small, regular effort keeps worm burdens from spiking when temperatures rise again.
Where you feed conserved forage also shapes grazing behaviour. Place feeders at least 15 metres from dams, creeks, or catch drains to prevent silage effluent from leaching into waterways. Establishing a sacrificial feeding area for the wettest months preserves the rest of the paddock, allows you to concentrate repair work, and protects soil structure across the farm.
Watching Water Quality and Reading Animal Signals
Stock tell you a lot before you ever send a sample to the lab. When animals enter a fresh break, a confident herd usually drinks within minutes. If they sniff, hesitate, and walk away, take notice. Check for taints from decaying plant matter, a dead frog, or an upstream water source that has recently turned cloudy after rain.
Laboratory testing still has a place. A quarterly screen for total bacterial count, pH, and dissolved minerals builds a picture of water stability through the seasons. High iron or manganese, for example, can coat trough walls and harbour bacteria even when your cleaning routine is solid. Where results creep outside recommended ranges, a simple fix such as a cartridge filter on the line or a bigger float valve to lift flow often restores balance without major expense.
Keep notes on both lab results and observations in the paddock. Linking a spike in bacterial count to a particular weather event or plumbing failure lets you act faster next time. Over a year or two, these records show whether your hygiene plan is keeping pace with herd size and changing climate patterns.
Final Thought
Paddock biosecurity is not a one‑off project but a rhythm: position, flow, clean; feed, move, rest; observe, test, adjust. Each small step limits the pathways that let disease agents travel from mouth to mouth or hoof to hoof. Put the routine in place now, and clean water and feed become the quiet foundations of better weight gain, healthier animals, and fewer costly surprises down the track.
Until we meet again, Happy Biosecurity!
- The Dedicated Team of Pasture.io, 2025-05-20