Yesterday as I walked about in the heat with my hose making sure animals had water to stand in and cold water in their troughs I began to wonder about how much water I was using. How much water is needed to run a sustainable, organic farmy.
So I did a little research.
Daisy (milking dairy cow) will consume between 30 and 40 gallons of water a day. It takes 4 gallons of water to make 1 gallon of milk. She produces over 7 gallons a day.
Queenie (beef heifer) will drink 15 – 20 gallons a day. The steer will drink the same. It takes 3 gallons of water to produce one hamburger pattie. Though pound by pound chicken takes massively less water than beef. Hmm. The chickens will drink about a pint each a day.
Mama (a lactating ewe) will drink 2-3 gallons a day and the other sheep at least 1 gallon.
.Why is there a lamb on my verandah again! She was given a bottle of water and sent back to her flock.
All our animals are on green grass so they need less water than a dry feedlot animal. An animal on a dry diet on a hot day needs more. But already we are using a lot of water.
But how about this! It takes 518 gallons of water to make each tire for your car whether it is an electric car or not. I am not even going to tell you how many gallons it takes to make a whole car, it is astronomical.
The pigs will drink 1/2 a gallon a day. And my pigs will throw huge amounts of water about in play but we are not counting Water Play! 
It takes 1,800 gallons of water to grow enough cotton for your jeans. So wear them until they are worn out!
The plastic bottle containing your bottled water takes 1 1/2 gallons of water to make. Thankfully you and I do not buy bottled water, we filter it ourselves. But how much water and oil was needed to make the filtering jug. And the filter! Now don’t start me on oil.. back to water.
.A hive of bees will drink about a quart of water a day. By yesterday afternoon this dripping tap was heaving with bees. Cooling the hive was a priority for them yesterday.
But what about a pound of organic lettuce? 23 gallons of water. This includes the growing and the processing.
It takes 3 gallons of water to produce one organic tomato!
2847 gallons for a pound of chocolate.. oh dear.. well I never much liked chocolate anyway. Though this figure seemed inflated so I checked it with three different sources. And it seems right. The cocoa bean must be a thirsty plant.
Now for the kicker: 2, 100 gallons of water to produce one gallon of ethanol. Though around here corn is not irrigated. But many many corn and soy crops are irrigated across the country.
What about an apple? Or a head of brocolli. Oh dear.
As I write this I have already turned the morning sprinkler on in the vege garden. So it waters before the sun comes up to evaporate most of it. Two gardens are watered each day. They are on a four day rotation to encourage deep roots. But I have found estimates of 240 gallons – 600 gallons per hour using a sprinkler. We use well water. Good cold water from deep in the earth.
I guess I have some work to do as to conserving water on the farmy.
That is what happens when it is too hot to work outside. I get to depress myself with numbers. However you know how I feel. The world wide water shortage problem is too big for me. So I shall work on my small solveable problems. By growing my own and working hard to use less water. We can only do what we can do. That is a stupid sentence but it is true.
Still. It takes a lot of water to keep a cow.
Good morning. It was hot yesterday but there was a breeze and it only reached 100. I discovered (now that we have discussed how much water I am wasting,) that if I weed in the spray of the sprinkler I can work for longer and the weeds come out easier!! Bad water girl!
I opened the barn for all the animals to come and go but they scorned the barn and stood under the trees instead. Of course the sheep were allowed to go into their root cellar and were not seen all day. All except Minty of course. So that was a lesson learned and the big barn doors are closed again to keep it cool in there for the baby animals.
Today is dawning dreadfully hot. Humid and still. It might rain. But then again it may not. So no holding our breaths!
Have a good day.
celi
ps A gallon equals = 3.78 litres.
The Kitchen's Garden 
68 responses to “Water, water everywhere, give me a drop to drink”
We all love sharing your farmy life, and along with the fantastic photos (love the shot of the bees) we get to hear cute stories about TonTon, the cats, Minty, etc but underlying all this I recognise you are also posting from an awareness perspective, eg water consumption in this post and sustainability & reality in general, as the farmy’s micro-economy/environment reflects the issues of the macro that affect all of us. That’s what I like about the farmy, it’s deeper than the “lifestyle” images, recipes and so on you’d see if you take your posts at face value. I believe awareness is empowering; it’s lack of awareness & information which are depressing and also convenient for those in the world who rely on the deficit so they have free range for short term monetary gain at the expense of long term environmental integrity.
I absolutely agree that awareness, wide awake ness is the answer. We may get it wrong but we will know how to get it right next time! learning all the time is imperative. And thank you so so much for that super comment.. i do appreciate that.. c
I am glad you are able to use well water. I cannot imagine what piped-in water would cost.
That would be astronomical, thankfully we live on a drained swamp so there is water. c
These are awe-inspiring calculations. Here the eco houses use their ‘grey water’ from the house to water their gardens. Even well water has to be replenished underground. I just hope that you get lots of free water from the sky.
ah yes free water from the sky, passed us by today.. hey ho.. c
We were on severe water restrictions for years in Brisbane a little while ago because of an ongoing drought. Everyone was very water conscious, but then we had floods and our dam is full and it is not spoken about now, but things go in cycles and there will be drought again.
It is scary to think how much water we use without thinking about it.
I rarely use bottled water, I drink from the tap, but I am always surprised at how much bottled water Italians drink ( in our area anyway ) There are whole bottled water departments in the supermarkets. This is even more strange since there are running springs in most towns….what a waste!
that is weird.. all about marketing i guess! c
Aw! It looks like the piggy is enjoying that water!
You are a “well” of information. Pun intended. We just come through the coldest, wettest, grayest, least amount of sunshine for the month of June. Still water is not to be taken lightly. We can survive several days without food, but not without water. V.
Have a Beautiful Weekend – loving your post:)
It takes zero gallons of water to keep my back yard so brown. OK, seriously. It’s so dry here and I do water the garden. I sacrifice the rest of the yard for it. But most people want that green grass and are willing to pay for it. Of course they often water the sidewalks too!
that is the way to do it, choose what lives, there are whole borders of flower garden that have to fend for themselves here and we get way more rain than you.. i would rather water a tomato plant than grass anyday! c
I like the lambie on the verandah. Full grown might not be so cute up there…
Interesting about the bees water intake, had no idea! Actually, I wasn’t aware of all the water needs on a farm. Thanks for teaching us.
Wow, scary Celi, especially if you live in a country with not much water like South Africa!
Sad but true – if something is free or priced cheaply then people do not attribute much value to it. Fresh air and clean water – two ingredients necessary for life to continue. Diamonds and yachts?
An upside down world in which we live, eh?
I’m curious about gray water usage on an organic farm, Celi. Are there any opportunities there or would it become a health risk? I’m thinking back to the incident a year or 2 ago where organic lettuce from California became contaminated from tainted water. I use dish water (& have used collected shower water) to irrigate my flower beds, but I’ve resisted using it on the edibles. I’m careful about the soaps we use, but still…??
Thank you for writing about water, Celi. Many people do not know how much water it takes to make various things or to run a sustainable farm. Now we all know (if we are paying attention). Re: gray water: if you use it wherever you can (we flush toilets with used bathwater here), then you don’t have to use fresh water. I know you collect rainwater, too, on the farm.
Where do you think the water comes from?