Need advice regarding my well

[ducks4you]

I live on a 5-acre, used to be, farm. I keep horses and chickens and I garden. We live on the westmost street of a little 200 person (maybe) town and the town gets city water, which we use, too.
I have both a shallower cistern, right next the house AND a well that I was told, 15 years ago, was 25 feet deep. Yes, I'm tired of paying for water for gardening and filling my horse tank, plus the city water is chlorinated, so no goldfish can live in my horse's tank and eat the algae. (That works pretty well, btw.)
A previous owner used a tank to pull from the well. There is a rectangular cement slab with a square access above the well.
WHAT size pump would you recommend I buy to use this during non-icy weather? Any suggestions are appreciated, since I can't build an insulated building this year AND re-roof my barn. Thanks, ahead of time.

 

[k15n1]

McMaster has some pumps. I don't know that they have the best prices but it's somewhere to start.

As far as pump size, figure out how long you want to stand around waiting for it to fill a 250 trough, the divide by 250. Or whatever volume yours is. If you use gallons and minutes, your answer will be in gal/min, which is how most pumps are specified.

BTW, a well and a cistern are different. If it's a cistern, maybe you should collect rain off the roof to fill it.

 

[ducks4you]

DH calls the deeper one a "cistern", but I believe it is a well. We live on the original farm property in this town and this was THEIR well. Thanks for the suggestion. It gives me a good starting point.

 

[Beekissed]

Salatin uses a bilge pump to fill his water tanks from his ponds and reservoirs. Says they last a long time and only cost around $100 but I'm sure that price has changed since his books were written.

http://www.boatersworld.com/bilge-pumps.htm

 

[ducks4you]

Thanks! I started researching bilge pumps with the link you gave me. **hugs**