One of the smartest things stockowners can do is to measure how much water each of their storages holds.

All this requires is a measurement of the surface area and a measurement of the depth.

Surface area is simple. All you need is a tape measure.

And if you make up the following natty gadget, you can measure depth without getting your feet wet.

It’s an idea that I pinched from Barry Maybury from Condobolin Rural Lands Protection Board.

I made mine from a length of three millimetre starter cord that I got from the local chainsaw dealer.

The local fishing shop had the sinkers and the floats.

I placed the floats at two-metre intervals. In between these, I used plastic milk bottle lids so that I can measure to the nearest metre.

The cord is threaded through the floats and lids and a knot tied on either side to keep them in place.

All you need to do is to throw it out into the middle of your dam or wherever you think the deepest part is. Then simply let the sinkers take it down and wait until the floats pull the cord tight.

If you have numbers on the floats like mine has, you can read the depth.

Otherwise, if you may have ten floats on your cord and six are out of the water, your dam is four metres deep.

So, let’s say that you have a dam that is thirty metres by thirty metres by four metres deep. All you need to do is calculate the volume as shown on the Measuring water storage volume - example page.

If you do this for every storage on your property, you will have a complete water audit.

By knowing how much water different classes of stock will drink, you can estimate how long your water is going to last.

One thing that is going to happen is that the water level in your dams is going to rise and fall.

This means that you will have to make several measurements on each storage to account for this.

In order to make this easy, I suggest placing markers on the dam walls.

I strongly advise against steel posts. If the dam is quite full and the top of the post is under water, odds are that your best working dog is going to find it.

I like the idea of storm water pipe buried in the dam walls with only a few centimetres protruding. They can be filled with earth or, even better, cement. This then makes them reasonably cattle-proof.

There’s no exact rule on evaporation but if you don’t get rain during summer, you’re likely to lose about 25 per cent of your water.

Contact Bob Kilgour, Trangie, (02) 6880 8052.