Dale, TX Stock Tank for Cattle Water: A Tenth of an Acre Dug in One Day

The cattle on a Dale pasture had found the one spot that held water after a rain and trampled it into a mud hole: a few square yards of churned ground that held mud, not water. The owner wanted a proper tank there. One day with the Komatsu D71 cut a tenth of an acre basin four and a half feet deep with four to one banks on the same spot, and the cattle have water instead of mud. This page shows the ground before and after, and what the one day cost.

The finished tenth of an acre stock tank at Dale Texas with the D71 at the far bank, the basin shaped and track packed and waiting on rain

A wet spot the cattle had found first

The before photos are taken over the blade of the dozer. The low spot on the pasture had been catching runoff, the herd had been walking into it to drink, and between the hooves and the water it had turned into a pocket of cracked, churned mud with a shallow hole in the middle. That is how a lot of stock tanks start: the cattle tell you where the water goes, and then they ruin the spot.

The owner did not want a pond. He wanted a tank, sized for the herd and dug where the water already collected, so the cattle would have something to drink through the summer and would stop standing in the mud.

A tenth of an acre, cut in a day

The D71 took the basin down at the low spot to about four and a half feet at center and cut the banks to four to one all the way round, the same slope we build every pond and tank to, so the edge holds its shape under hooves and a cow can walk in and back out. The spoil was shaped around the cut and the floor and banks were track packed. The after photos show the finished bowl with the dozer at the far bank, dry and waiting on the next rain.

A tank this size is deliberately simple. It sits where the runoff already went, it is deep enough to hold water through a dry spell for a small herd, and it was built in a single day because there was nothing on the site that needed a second one. No bentonite went in.

What it cost

The job ran $3,000 to $4,000 for one day of the Komatsu D71, transport included. That is the small end of the pond work on this site. Our price list starts at a quarter acre; a tenth of an acre tank is below it, and it prices the way the rest of our dirt work does, by the machine day. The Dale pond page has the local ground and the full list.

Set it against the other September ponds for scale: the half acre rebuild at Lockhart, a few miles down the road in the same county, ran four days with a seal, and the acre and a half at Rosanky ran thirteen. A stock tank is the one day version of the same trade.

When a tank is enough

Not every piece of ground needs a pond. If the question is cattle water on a pasture that already catches runoff, a tank sized for the herd and dug in a day does the job for a fraction of what a pond costs, and it can be deepened or opened up later if the place grows. If the question is a pond that holds through a drought, carries fish, or sits where the creek runs, that is a different build with a different day count, and the leaking pond guide and the rehab guide cover what goes into it.

The same day this tank was cut, the Weiler mulcher was in Dale clearing five acres of mesquite pasture. Two one day jobs, two machines, both priced off the rates on this site.

Before and after

Land clearing around Dale

We work the country around Dale regularly, across Caldwell County and the counties next to it.