Well, here's what happened when I checked my set ups this week...



Before the javelina destroyed my float set up:


After they destroyed it:


Looks like I need to get taller water bins.
I did change out the garden hoses to stainless steel hoses and I set all the tanks and water troughs back up.

You need to move your trough downhill or elevate the tote higher so it will gravity flow better. With your current setup you will only drain the tote so much till you loose pressure with the water level being higher than the drain hole on your tote.. I would also put rocks inside the trough to help weight it down and to keep animals from getting inside of it. I have cut a 4"x4" cattle panel or 6"x6" cattle panel to fit over and attach to the top of the trough. Deer with their narrow nose can drink out of the 4"x4" if the water level is up high enough. That will keep javis and hogs from trying to get inside the trough to cool off. Level your trough so it will fill evenly. You want to keep shorter water troughs so the fawns can drink out of them. You get them to tall and the fawns will not be able to reach the water to drink.

At one time our neighbor had a concrete trough, 2x2 and about 6" deep, heavy enough that it could not be moved by animals, gravity fed with a float valve that was covered. It worked good sitting on the ground, but was better when he add dirt to get it at ground level.

Oddly enough, the IBC totes were high enough to drain all the water. I put them on two pallets which i didn't think would be enough, but they drained just fine.

The inside of the trough was filled with big heavy rocks. I purposefully angled it because I didn't want to fill the entire thing and have a lot of water lost to heat/evaporation.
Here's what it looked like when I set it up.



I wanted to provide just enough water to have for drinking without it being "too full"

good looking set up, but I would add a lot more rocks, especially over the board that the float is attache too, maybe even put a couple more boards across the top of the trough with some screws down into the top edge of the trough to prevent something getting in there, rustling the rocks around to dislodge the float. I need to do something similar at our place SW from Ozona, in a couple of locations.

Thanks. The boards drilled in are a good idea. I brought the drill out the first time, but the 110v outlets in the back of my truck didn't like that. Should probably get chargeable ones...

yep, battery powered drill or nut driver and use self tapping screws, work like a charm. I have repaired multiple water trough floats due to cattle/horses jacking with the floats and covering them sure helps prevent damage and wasting water.