Liam Fox from Thurles, Co Tipperary, made a rainwater separator to enable the diversion of water from his livestock yards to different areas during the year depending on the cleanliness of the yard.

One of Liam’s yards goes between a slatted cubicle shed and the milking parlour collecting yard. This yard was always dirty in the winter when the cows were walking between the cubicle shed and the milking parlour to be milked. However, in the summer, it was clean because the cows went out to the fields by a different route.

All rainwater that fell on the yard went into the cubicle shed tank regardless of whether the yard was clean or dirty. This was causing the tank to fill unnecessarily with clean water and creating a lot of work for Liam. There was a downpipe coming from the guttering to an underground clean water pipe, which was channelled underground to a nearby drain.

Liam designed the sliding sleeve system with a rubber seal in the base. The system is made up of a slurry hose quick-release coupling, which has a 110mm stainless steel pipe fitted inside with 10mm slots cut in the sides. When the sleeve is in the open position, run-off can enter the slots in the downpipe and mix with the clean water from the eave chutes. If the yard is dirty, the sliding sleeve is easily moved into the closed position. The dirty run-off from the yard can no longer enter the clean water system and must now flow into the cubicle shed tank.

When the yard is cleaned again, the sliding sleeve can be opened to allow the clean runoff to enter the clean water system.

The clean water from the eave chutes flows through the rainwater separator whether the sleeve is in the open or closed position.

“I am very happy with the system considering the amount of rain we have had in the past few weeks. It is a good labour-saving device because, otherwise, I would have to spread far more slurry during the year as clean water during the summer would be entering the tank,” he explained.