We have not had water in the barn for the whole time we’ve lived here. (By water, I’m meaning running water flowing from a tap. Not a leak. We have some of those.)

It has not been a big deal because for 13 of those years, we had no need for water in the barn.

When the chickens and turkeys arrived, they needed water, but I could easily keep them supplied with a small bucket. I filled it from the hose on the patio and carried it out to the barn. Even their big waterers weren’t a big deal to carry back and forth a few times a week. In the winter, I had a clean bucket that I filled at the kitchen sink and dumped into a barn bucket.

But ducklings are another matter. Ducks need water.

We started the ducklings with a small barrel in their run. It took a 5 gallon pail to fill even this small tub. Hauling a full 5 gallon pail out to the barn every morning was more of a workout than I wanted.

I made it a week and then I called the plumber.

We had water in the barn, kind of. The issue was to figure out if it worked.

When we first moved to the farm, all the water was in the barn. The well flowed to the barn, where the pump then sent it to the house. Everything was in an insulated box, heated by a lightbulb. The equipment was old and some was not working properly.

The set up was questionable, so we drilled a new well and installed a new pump and treatment system in the house. Then we ignored all of the equipment in the barn, figuring it was a problem for another day.

Well, the ducklings moved to the coop and another day arrived.

When we installed the new well, our contractors connected to the old pipe that ran from the barn. The idea was we could reverse the flow and push water from the new well back to the barn. So my question to my plumber was, “Can we do that?”

The first step was to figure out which pipe was the right pipe. The pump, tank and pipes in the barn were a mess. Four pipes disappeared into the ground. Which one was connected to the house? The plumber took a guess, cut a pipe, and I ran back to the house to open the valve labelled “barn.” (At least I knew which pipe was which at one end.) The plumber was able to see where the water came out, so that told us what pipe to use.

Then we had to get from the end of the pipe to the coop. Completely on the other side of the barn. I bought 100 feet of waterline and strung it across the barn, screwing it into the beams as I went.

Gratuitous picture of my cute work crew. Note, the ducklings, the instigators of this work, are not present.

The plumber came back and tied into my new waterline. He gave me a tap at the coop side, where I could install a hose that would fill tubs outside in the run or buckets in the pens. Back at the old pump box, he gave me a new shut off valve and two clean out taps, so I can drain the line for the winter.

It has been so nice to have water at the barn.

It also enables me to upgrade the ducklings’ tub. I’m on the hunt for a bathtub. If you hear of anyone getting rid of an old tub, please let me know.