Water Cooler for Ice Bath

[Tallcool1]

We have gotten off to a rough start with the hair growing this year.  We had snow in May, and had a really hard time getting the steers to shed.  In fact we have one that still has not completely let go of his hair.  We actually kicked the steers OUT of the cooler for a week after being in for three weeks.  Anyway, we are behind now and playing catch up on a county fair steer that is about 5 weeks out.

We have a cooler.  We use shedding combs.  We sprayed them down with final bloom and let them bake in the sun.  Grow and Shine, Kelp, rinsing twice a day, cooler is set at 45, they get about 2 hours of sunlight per day, ration is cooled off about as much as we are comfortable with and still getting him fat, brushing until they can't brush anymore, blowing, 3 turbo fans...it is like a wind tunnel in there!

He is growing hair, and it is good hair.  Lower leg hair is coming, and now we want to go hard.

We are wanting to start on rinsing with ice water.  I don't have a way to freeze half full buckets of water.  I read somewhere that a chest style deep freeze could be made into a water cooler and the water then pumped out and slowly showered over a steers back.  Does anyone have a setup like this, and if so how does it work or how did you build it?

Thanks

 

[goodnight]

Caveat, I have never done this. But, I have had multiple knee surgeries, and I had a little ice chest with a pump in it that ran cold water over my knee constantly. If you find someone that had one, you could see a mini version of what you need. Basically, the ice chest is a bigger cooler, and a pump in the chest will pull it out and into your hose.

FWIW, after my last knee surgery I vowed it was my last time to get cut on, and I burned all my gear after I was released.

 

[DLD]

Haven't done it, but I've seen chest type freezers used this way.  The one's I talked to about it said they didn't have to do anything to it - not sure how they had it set, but the water wasn't frozen at all, just sure ice cold.  I believe they were dipping the water out with a bucket.

That said, we just freeze gallon jugs full of water, they'll fit pretty easily in any freezer.  Drop the frozen jug in a 5 gallon bucket with 4 gallons of water - in a few minutes, it'll be ice cold.  You can repeat it two or three times, then pour the melted water out of the jugs over the calves too.  Then just refill them and stick 'em back in the freezer.  Easy and cheap.

 

[garett]

I helped someone who had something like this once. It was a fairly simple set-up. They just had a small chest freezer that they kept filled with water. I'm not sure what the temperature it was set at, but obviously low enough where it didn't freeze up. Then, when it was time to rinse they had a small sump pump with a hose on it that they just turned on and dropped in the freezer. They used up all the water in the freezer and filled it up whenever they were finished to start cooling the next batch.

 

[Tallcool1]

Thank you all for your comments.  I guess it does seem pretty simple.

Now for the $1,000,000 question......does the ice water bath work? 

Will it actually accelerate the hair growth process?

Ground water is basically about 55 degrees, and the cooler is about 45 degrees plus a wind chill factor.  Rinse for 10 minutes with 55 degree water, and then into a 45 degree cooler to get blown out and brushed on for an hour with fans running.  Does the ice water make enough difference to justify the additional work?

I guess I believed that it would, but have been told a few times in the last 12 hours that it probably doesn't.  You guys know the answer.

Thanks

 

[DLD]

Well, I'm not sure how much difference it will make in your case.  We don't have a cool room - just a water cooler and fans.  I've only ever used it on steers for Tulsa, so it's been in September.  I felt like it helped, but a little different situation than yours.

 

[rjb]

The thing with the ice water is it chills the hide causing them to stimulate hair growth. No different than a calf in winter the colder it gets the thicker the coat. I've been icing calves for 15+ yrs. you can definatly tell a difference between ones we've done and the ones we haven't.

 

[Hoosier]

Rinsing with ice water will do a great job growing hair.  We've never had a cooler and for a few years now we have rinsed our best calves with ice water twice a day and it has done a wonderful job growing hair.  A lot of people with coolers still rinse with ice water to lower steers core temperature. We just used a big Coleman cooler and have an ice maker in the garage that makes a 5 gallon bucket of ice at a time and rigged up a hose and a small pump that draws the water out of the drain plug of the cooler.  Works pretty slick for a 100 dollar setup.

 

[CAShorthornJock]

We have been using this method for a few years now and it works great. We do not have a cooler so what we do is rinse them with the ice water early in the morning and tie them up under a fan in a enclosed room that is in a cool spot of the barn. We then rinse them and blow them dry and work the hair in the middle of the day and then at night before we kick them out and ice them again. Our setup is just a normal chest cooler with settings 1-5. We normally leave it on 2 or 2.5. A little ice may build up around the edges but its minimal and most of the time there is no ice at all.We then drop a small half horsepower pump in with a hose attached and rinse them with that.

 

[vc]

I have seen the same method used as CA ShorthornJock described, one thing I will add is you have to watch the ice cooler day or days and the ice can build up. The one I saw used, had about 1 inch of ice on the sides and a thin layer over the top, and Silver Bullets floating at the top.

 

[RyanChandler]

Caveat, I have never done this. But, I have had multiple knee surgeries, and I had a little ice chest with a pump in it that ran cold water over my knee constantly. If you find someone that had one, you could see a mini version of what you need. Basically, the ice chest is a bigger cooler, and a pump in the chest will pull it out and into your hose.

FWIW, after my last knee surgery I vowed it was my last time to get cut on, and I burned all my gear after I was released.

I'm in the same boat, 2 knee surgeries - that ice water machine is a god send! I have a torn ACL now in the same knee- for no amt of money would I let them hack on it again. 

 

[goodnight]

Caveat, I have never done this. But, I have had multiple knee surgeries, and I had a little ice chest with a pump in it that ran cold water over my knee constantly. If you find someone that had one, you could see a mini version of what you need. Basically, the ice chest is a bigger cooler, and a pump in the chest will pull it out and into your hose.

FWIW, after my last knee surgery I vowed it was my last time to get cut on, and I burned all my gear after I was released.

I'm in the same boat, 2 knee surgeries - that ice water machine is a god send! I have a torn ACL now in the same knee- for no amt of money would I let them hack on it again.

Not to get off topic, but I personally feel that there are a lot of unnecessary knee surgeries. The clean ups that I had on one knee I think could have been avoided if they had just let my meniscus heal. The left knee was almost beyond repair for me, I tore my ACL playing football and Dad thought it would be a good idea to build two miles of fence while I was waiting for the surgery because I "didn't have anything better to do". Thanks Dad for the arthritis at 35. Just kidding, I agreed to drive everyone of those posts and would probably do it again if in the same boat.

 

[hntwhitetail]

Caveat, I have never done this. But, I have had multiple knee surgeries, and I had a little ice chest with a pump in it that ran cold water over my knee constantly. If you find someone that had one, you could see a mini version of what you need. Basically, the ice chest is a bigger cooler, and a pump in the chest will pull it out and into your hose.

FWIW, after my last knee surgery I vowed it was my last time to get cut on, and I burned all my gear after I was released.

I'm in the same boat, 2 knee surgeries - that ice water machine is a god send! I have a torn ACL now in the same knee- for no amt of money would I let them hack on it again.

Not to get off topic, but I personally feel that there are a lot of unnecessary knee surgeries. The clean ups that I had on one knee I think could have been avoided if they had just let my meniscus heal. The left knee was almost beyond repair for me, I tore my ACL playing football and Dad thought it would be a good idea to build two miles of fence while I was waiting for the surgery because I "didn't have anything better to do". Thanks Dad for the arthritis at 35. Just kidding, I agreed to drive everyone of those posts and would probably do it again if in the same boat.

I know the feeling....

 

[Warrior10]

We have been freezing ice cream buckets of water and using those as "ice cubes" to cool down 5 gal buckets. I have a question though, how do you apply the ice water to other parts of the body besides the topline effectively without a hose?

 

[pds]

When you are rinsing with Ice water do you start by rinsing with regular water then switch to the Ice or do you just start right off with Ice water on their body. My first thought on the ice is it could send them into shock if they are warm and go straight to cold.  We use a chest freezer with the water at about 34 degrees. When we do it we start by rinsing legs and then after about five min on the legs we move to the body.