Water dictates the whole operation.
Fence twenty paddocks in a week and if eighteen of them have no water, you still have two paddocks. Here is the whole system in the order you build it — mainline, fittings, taps, floats, troughs.
Three numbers size the whole system
Most water systems are sized on a guess and then live with it for twenty years. These three are what actually decide the pipe, the valve and the trough — and only one of them is about how much water the herd drinks in a day.
- How much a dayA dry cow drinks 10–15 gal; in summer heat, or lactating, 20–25. Multiply by head.
- How fast at the peakhead × gpd × 0.25 ÷ 60 — the herd arrives together. Peak draw sizes the valve and the trough.
- How far and how highDistance and lift set the pipe size. Flow alone does not.
Work the run out before you dig
Pipe is cheap; a second trench is not. These three cover sizing the run, picking the pipe, and getting someone else to pay for a good chunk of it.
The mainline
HDPE in one continuous coil, joined only where you choose to join it. Buy the next size up from what the flow calculation says — the pipe is a small part of the job and you will add paddocks later. Everything we sell is IPS-OD, SDR 11, 200 PSI.
from $331.00Ships LTL freight
from $4,213.75Ships LTL freight
from $5.34
from $13.79
from $26.05
from $4.60
Read first: HDPE pipe buyer’s guide · Technical reference · Direct burial installation · HDPE vs PVC · Water system design
Tees, elbows and adapters
Every branch, every corner and every transition to thread. Buy a few spare of each size you are running — the trip back to town costs more than the fitting. Female fittings take thread coming in; standard fittings are pipe to pipe.
from $28.09
from $26.05
from $20.15
from $15.95
from $9.70
from $17.48
from $12.83
Read first: Fittings buyer’s guide · Where each fitting goes · 3/4” fittings · 1” fittings · 1-1/4” · 1-1/2”
Shut-offs and paddock taps
Put a valve anywhere you would otherwise have to drain the whole line to fix one trough. Quick couplers are the cheap trick that makes a permanent mainline work with portable water — cap it flush, and plug a portable tank in wherever the herd happens to be.
from $79.35
$17.95
$6.76
Read first: Livestock water system design · Pressure ratings and testing · All ball valves · Water for a grazing rotation
Float valves
The float is what decides whether the trough keeps up. Size it on peak draw, not on daily volume — a hundred head arriving at once will empty a tank faster than any 3/4” valve refills it. When in doubt go up a size; the valve costs less than a dry trough.
$76.07
$77.33
$79.97
$12.49
$60.10
$97.39
Read first: Stock tank float valve guide · Sizing flow to the herd · All valves and floats
Troughs, tanks and winter water
The drinking end. A tire tank is the cheapest serious trough there is and all but indestructible. Energy-free waterers trade a bigger up-front number for never running a heater cable or chopping ice again — which in a hard-freeze climate pays back faster than it looks.
$349.99Ships LTL freight
$511.50Made to order · LTL freight
$770.00Made to order · LTL freight
$852.50Made to order · LTL freight
$1,098.90Made to order · LTL freight
$1,306.80Made to order · LTL freight
$1,924.99Made to order · LTL freight
Read first: Keeping water open in winter · Matching the float to the tank · How many troughs and where · Practice 614 pays for watering facilities
Start with the run, not the parts list
Draw the paddock and the Ranch Builder sizes the pipe from flow, lift and friction loss, then gives you the run length, the fittings and the trough as a costed list you can price, print or put straight in a cart.
Or tell us the layout and we’ll spec it
Water systems are the thing people most often get wrong on paper and only find out about after the trench is backfilled. Send us the distances, the lift and the head count and we’ll size it with you — right pipe, right valve, right trough, nothing you don’t need.
Handy to have in front of you: where the water comes from, roughly how far to the furthest trough, how much the ground rises along the way, head count and class of stock, and whether it has to work through a freeze.
Seymour, Missouri — Central time. You get a grazier, not a call centre.
Go deeper — from the Grazier’s Connection
Everything above is the build list. These go further into the choices behind it, and none of them are trying to sell you anything on the way through.
- Livestock water system design
- HDPE pipe buyer’s guide — specs, sizing, fittings
- HDPE pipe technical reference
- Fittings buyer’s guide
- HDPE vs PVC
- Direct burial installation
- Stock tank float valves
- Keeping water open in winter
- EQIP cost-share — practices 516 and 614
- Water for a grazing rotation
- Building the outside fence
- Ranch infrastructure planner
- Prices shown were pulled live from our catalogue on 12 October 2026 and are the current single-unit or starting price. Each fitting is sized 3/4” through 2” — the price shown is the smallest size, and the full range is on the product page.
- Water intake figures of 10–25 gallons per head per day are a planning range for beef cattle, not a specification. Actual intake moves with temperature, class of stock, lactation, dry matter and how much water is already in the forage.
- Pipe coils and reels, tire tanks and energy-free waterers ship LTL freight rather than parcel. Energy-free waterers are built to order — call before ordering if you need a delivery date.
- All Philmac fittings we stock are IPS-OD and will not seal on CTS-OD or SIDR pipe. Measure the outside diameter of any existing pipe before ordering.
- EQIP cost-share rates vary by state, practice and applicant. Practice 516 (Livestock Pipeline) and 614 (Watering Facility) are the usual ones. Talk to your local NRCS office before you buy — work started before approval is generally not eligible.