Like humans, animals are made up mostly of water. Sixty to seventy percent of an animal’s weight is water. Besides dehydration, inadequate water can trigger stress and nutrient deficiency in livestock, greatly affecting their health and productivity. Worse, all these may have something to do with your water trough of choosing.
It's important to note that your livestock may live up to 60 days without food, but they can barely last more than 7 days without water. This highlights the importance of why you should have the appropriate water trough for your livestock.
So, what are some factors that affect your livestock's performance? Find out more below.
This mostly pertains to common salts such as sodium chloride, magnesium, calcium, sulphates and bicarbonates. Underground and bore water are known to contain higher salt levels than surface waters. Whereas your livestock may have a high-tolerance to saline water, certain conditions greatly reduce their tolerance.
For example, lactating, pregnant or young animals are not as tolerant of salty water. Stock suffering from drought conditions also have a reduced tolerance. Sheep, on the other hand, may be able to tolerate up to 13,000 mg/L of total dissolved salt.
See here for a table on livestock tolerance to dissolved salts in their drinking water (mg/L).
Pregnant or lactating cows are especially vulnerable to water with total dissolved solids (TDS) more than 5,000 mg/L while TDS higher than 7,000 mg/L should be kept away from cattle altogether. Young, aged and weak animals are also especially more vulnerable to salts than healthier, fully grown animals.
Also note that salts may be present in herbicides, pesticides and fertiliser and thus contribute to salinity levels.
The result of drinking water that’s too saline is salt poisoning.
This is most likely to occur in the following conditions:
Cattle may avoid drinking a highly saline water for days, only to try to compensate for the lack of water by drinking a lot, leading to illness and possibly, death.
Some signs of salt poisoning include weakness, excessive thirst, diarrhea, abdominal pain, tremors, holding head abnormally, blindness, circling around and convulsions.
to maintain due to their weight.
Some diseases can closely resemble salt poisoning. Seek the help of your veterinarian for more advice on appropriate treatment especially in extreme cases.
These are found in animal protein, decaying plant, nitrogen fertiliser, and silage juices. Nitrogen in the form of nitrate is rare in surface water and is most commonly found in groundwater contaminated by fertiliser or manure.
Although nitrate toxicity from water is rare, problems can occur when livestock consume high nitrate levels from forages. When combined with already high levels of nitrate in water, an additional amount from feed can be dangerous, resulting in death in as little as 3 – 5 hours after consumption.
Nitrate poisoning is generally chronic. Other effects of nitrate include weight loss, reduction in appetite and greater risk to miscarriage and infection.
Part of the danger with nitrate is that it can convert to nitrite, which has a more rapid onset of toxic symptoms than nitrate. Nitrite has the undesirable effect of reducing your livestock’s blood’s capacity to metabolise oxygen, leading to breathing problems such as shortness of breath and suffocation.
Nitrate-nitrogen levels in water between 10 and 100 mg/L may be dangerous. As such, it’s best to steer on the side of caution. Levels beyond 100 mg/L is definitely unsafe. Nitrite-nitrogen levels in water beyond 30 mg/L is considered dangerous to cattle health.
The performance and health of your livestock are greatly dependent on livestock water consumption. During drought when nitrate and salt toxicity are highly likely, the advantages of the availability of quality water are manifold.
What lengths would you not go to for the greater performance and health of your livestock?
See part 2 of this article here.