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Author: Joep Driessen is a Dutch dairy vet with 15 years experience in advising dairy farmers
in 45 countries. His Vetvice team is active in CowSignals training, Barn Design and Dairy
management. www.cowsignals.com
Look at the coats of the cow. Shiny smooth coats is a sign of good water intake. Elastic skin
is a good sign: lift up a piece of skin from the side of a cow’s neck and it should pop back in
place within half a second. If the wrinkle stays there after releasing it is a sign of
dehydration. What are the eyes telling
you? Lively and round big eyes are good
signs. If eyes are sunken deep in the skull
it means this cow did not drink today…. If
a calf looks like this you better start
running to call the vet to save her life.
On a farm in Scotland and some in
Ireland I found heifers and weak cows
with very stiff manure. This was on farms
with only one big drinker for over 100
animals. One “big mama” is ruling the
place and she likes to spend several
2
How do cows behave at the drinker?
Are they scared? For other cows or for
stray voltage? Are they looking around
before drinking? Are they sniffing and
not drinking? Are they passing the first
drinker and walk to the next one? Are
they sticking the tongue in first, to
check the water temperature? Do you
hear them making sucking noises: that
means there is not enough water
pressure or the drinker is too small.
Can the cows reach the water or is the
rim too high? Do they touch the rim of
the drinker? We advise to have wide
Easy to empty
passages and put the drinkers on 60
cm high only. Many are placed at 110
cm height and you see that cows can hardly drink. Try it yourself; drink water while you push
with one finger in your throat. This is not a good feeling and makes the cows drink less.
Cows like to drink 10-15 times a day around 10 litres. In hot summers a high yielding 10.000
litre cow can drink 200 litres per day. The normal drinking speed of a cow is about 20 litres
per minute so cows like to drink a minimum of 10 times a day for a half a minute. The more
drinkers you put in, the better chance that your heifers will drink enough water. For a nice
drink the cows like to have a water depth of at least 7 cm. They have to dip their mouth in
without sucking air at the sides of their lips. Then if you talk about “fast drinkers”, you need
a water flow of 20 litres per minute to serve the cow. That means that you need 5
atmosphere pressure, a 30 mm wide tube and a large inlet opening in the drinker. Many
commercially available drinkers are useless, because engineers don’t know much about
cows and farmers. Check the details and test it with a big bucket: do they bring 20 litres per
minute? Are they easy to clean? Do they have nice round edges, so there are no risks of
wounding the cow? Are they wide enough so a cow can stand straight and drink
comfortably?
3
TIP TANKS, OPEN DRINKERS WITH QUICK PLUGS, DOUBLE FAST DRINKERS
It is better to make excellent water supply in your cow house then in your parlour where
they can only use it twice a day for 15 minutes. If you have a very bad water supply in your
barn, parlour drinkers can be a cheap way to improve water intake.
Don’t worry about the temperature. As long as it stays above zero. First make sure you have
clean water. Second make sure you have enough drinkers, Thirdly: check the pressure so
they will be always full.
Then if you have these major 3 things assured, you can start to worry about the ideal
temperature of around 17 degrees Celcius. Cows drink more in winter time when you
supply warm water.
Cooling water from the milk cooler can be used to water the cows. Just beware: if you don’t
clean the drinkers cows will only drink less water in summertime, because of rapid bacterial
growth. So warm water in winter is ok, in summer it is risky. For cooling the cow in heat
stress we prefer cold water.
In the very open buildings that we nowadays advise with our vetvice barn design team, it is
necessary to have a good winter proof water system that cannot freeze. A ring line with
constant circulation does the job. For below 5 degrees Centigrade we also need a heater on
the system, and electric heaters on the water tanks, or a special circulating system that
leads the warmer ring line water through the open troughs.
4
SHITTING IN THE DRINKERS
With 60 cows and 3 passages to the feeding table we normaly put a big drinker in the front
and 2 double fast drinkers in the 2 other passages.
In small groups try to always give them 2 drinkers. It is good to put them on both sides of
the fence so two groups can use the same drinker.
Don’t put any concrete blocks under the drinkers as a step stone. It is a risk for wounded
legs while fighting for water or when cows are in heat. They do this to prevent cows from
shitting in it. If you place drinkers in a good position and make the passages wide enough
there is very little risk of shitting in the tank.
After calving we advise unlimited lukewarm water to get the cow back in shape and let her
eat as soon as possible. Some cows will drink 100 litre in the first hour.
If you have a straw pack for a fresh cow group and precalving group which is highly
recommended, than put the drinkers on the concrete cow lane area and not in the straw
pack. This will always be a messy spot. Only in your calving pen will you have to put the
drinker in the straw pack.