Watering Livestock Directly from Watercourses

While livestock can cause negative environmental impacts, this does not mean all livestock need to be denied direct access to watercourses. 

Impacts to a watercourse from livestock are primarily either from manure and urine or from hoof action.

This factsheet gives information on how to setup direct access for your livestock and covers such topics as: water quality, in-stream fish habitat, riparian areas, upland area livestock management, and legislation regarding livestock use of watercoures.

Managed and unrestricted access options are discussed indicating where these types of access would be used.

Example illustrations showing a good setup for direct access by livestock are shown. The illustrations show how livestock can be denied access to the watercourse except at the chosen watering point.

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