Do we care enough about water?

This topic has been of special interest to World Poultry magazine over the past few years. I have seen many articles in World Poultry that have discussed this very important issue from different aspects.

Supplying an adequate quantity of quality water is very important to bird health and production performance. Monitoring of water consumption, as it also relates to feed intake, can be a useful tool for evaluation of a poultry flock’s status .

It is always recommended that poultry drinking water should be regularly tested for microbial (total bacterial count and coliform bacteria) and chemical characteristics including pH, total hardness, calcium, magnesium, chloride, sodium, sulfate, iron, and nitrates (3).

1. We are usually not as concerned about water as we are about feed in poultry farms. Why? 

2. How often do you take water samples and send them to lab for chemical and microbial analyses? 

3. How does quality of water affect efficiency of vaccination through drinking water? 

4. How serious are you about cleaning of water lines in your poultry barns?