Canada - Reduced Water Waste Cuts Manure Storage and Application Costs
Published:April 1, 2005
Source :Manitoba Pork Council/Sask Pork
Research conducted by the Prairie Swine Centre shows reducing the volumes of water wasted by pigs as they drink will also translate into reduced manure storage and application costs.
Nipple drinkers are currently the most commonly used method for providing water to growing finishing pigs.
A series of studies on how pigs waste water, conducted by the Prairie Swine Centre, has shown adjusting the height of those drinkers as the pigs grow and, in most barns, reducing flow rates can save as much as a liter of water per pig per day.
Research Scientist in Applied Ethology Dr. Harold Gonyou says scientists found up to 45 percent of the water flowing into the barn through the drinker was being wasted.
"The water that comes into a barn via the drinker system is probably about 60 to 70 percent of the total water used by the pigs in a room.
There's water used for washing, there's some moisture in the feed, etceteras but, in terms of the water balance, 60 to 70 percent is coming from the drinker.
We can reduce that by probably 20 percent and that can be a substantial reduction of perhaps a half to a litre a day per pig.
That also reduces the amount of storage space you need for your manure because you don't have as much water going through there as well and then the volume that you have to distribute onto the land is reduced as well because you don't have all the water there.
There are a number of points you can save, the cost of the water, the storage capacity and also the cost of hauling and applying it to the land."
Dr. Gonyou says, in cases where flow rates were higher and water was running more quickly, the level of waste was higher and, where the nipple was at the wrong height making it uncomfortable for the pig to drink the amount of waste increased.
He says, by managing both water flow rates and the height of the drinker, it's possible to bring water use in nipple drinker systems in line with levels common in bowl type drinker systems.
