If you have farm animals, you know how nasty their water buckets and pails can get. Here is my little farm hack to getting those buckets and tubs scrubbed and cleaned really nice without having to buy any special scrubbers!
When starting our journey of homesteading, I only had visions and dreams of the good things.
The farm fresh eggs, garden-grown produce, fresh milk, and of course… the red barn!
What I didn’t dream about was the poop, the cleaning, the dirt and dust…. and did I mention, the poop?!
Yes my friend, having farm animals isn’t for the faint at heart because there is a lot of nastiness that comes along with them.
But that’s okay! I still love my animals.
Currently here on The Inspired Prairie we have 2 goats, 4 pigs (3 being raised for meat), 17 chickens and 2 barn cats.
As you can imagine, especially with having pigs, our animal’s water pails, tubs and buckets get NASTY!
And I’m talkin, I clean their water tubs one day, and the next day, they can be disgusting and mud-filled!
At first, we were using a washrag to scrub and clean our animal’s water tubs and buckets, but after awhile, that gets old. I didn’t like wasting wash cloths and they would always somehow end up in the mud, or trampled on, or, or, or!
And my “Farm Hack” for cleaning water pails and buckets was birthed!
Farm Hack | Best Way To Clean Animal Water Pails, Tubs and Buckets
I honestly couldn’t even tell you how I got inspired by this idea, because it literally just popped in my head one day while I was cleaning out the pigs and goats water pails. And all you need is one thing. Even better — it’s technically “free” because you’ll already have it on your farm.
Let me introduce you to the best farm hack for cleaning out animal’s water pails and buckets!
HAY!
Yep, the answer to your cleaning problem is hay! Hay, my dear friend, is a super effective tool for scrubbing water tubs and buckets because it has an abrasive texture to it. It’s also a great way to eliminate the waste of washrags, and you can throw the used hay in the compost when done!
Let me show you how I do it!
Step 1 – Grab a handful of hay
You’ll snag a handful of hay from your animals and start forming it into a ball (of sorts). You can roll it between both of your hands to easily form it into a ball-ish shape.
Step 2 – Empty out the pail and start scrubbing!
I first start out by dumping out the nasty water and giving it an initial scrubbing. Use your hay to scrub, scrub, scrub that nastiness out of the water pails. Get in the grooves, all along the edges, and everywhere that needs to be cleaned.
Step 3 – Rinse and Repeat!
Since the initial scrubbing was done with the pail still dirty, I like to rinse it after scrubbing the first time and scrub again. I do the rinse, scrub, and repeat as many times as I need until the buckets are nice and shiny clean.
Step 4 – DONE!
That’s it! Your water buckets, tubs and pails will be nice and shiny clean!
Be sure to take that handful of used up hay and throw it in your compost! 😉
Using hay as an abrasive is a wonderful farm hack to get your animal’s buckets, tubs, and water pails all nice and shiny clean.
TIP — This also works for anything around the farm really. Whether it is the pool for your ducks, feed buckets, feeders, animal toys; the possibilities are endless with this farm hack.
Here is a side by side comparison of a dirty pail, next to a freshly “hay” scrubbed one:
That’s it! I told you this farm hack was going to be really easy!
[…] Check out my awesome farm hack of how I get our animal water buckets and pails sparkly clean! […]