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Maths at work 2 – Carting water

The cattle enterprise that you work for has two properties. One is on the river. The other is a dry block watered by dams. You are currently in drought and the dams have dried up.

As there is still adequate standing feed the manager has decided to keep the cattle on the dry block and cart water to them from the river. There are 80 head of young stock on the block. Each animal will need to be supplied with 50 litres of water each day.

A 10 000 litre tank has been installed on the dry block that will gravity feed to troughs. A separate tank has been lifted onto a tray-top truck to cart the water. The internal dimensions of the tank are:

Length = 1.9 metres
Width = 1.5 metres
Height = 1.4 metres

You have been given the task of pumping and carrying the water to the stock. You will need to do some calculations to work out how often you need to cart water.

Calculate the volume of the tank on the back of the truck.
How much water will that tank hold?
How many loads will it take to fill the tank on the dry block?
Estimate the daily water requirement of the herd.
How often will you need to cart water to the dry block after initially filling the 10,000 litre tank?

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