Problem Solving Drinking Water Challenges

• Drinkers and regulators: How old is the equipment? Has the drinker system been subjected to treatments such as acids and chlorine that might impair their function over time? Measure milliliters per minute flow from the drinkers to assure they are putting out the quantity recommended by the manufacturer for each specific bird age.

• Supply plumbing: Determine gallons per minute flow rate at each barn to assure birds have adequate quantity of water coming into the barn. How old is the plumbing and could there be mineral and biofilm buildup? Are there deadend pipes that could be a factor? What is the age and material of the distribution system?
  

Has the system been cleaned between flocks? How? With what products? Was the entire system, barn lines as well as underground distribution lines, cleaned? Proper cleaning procedures are critical for success with eliminating disease challenges in the water. Sometimes what we think is occurring may not be reality. 

Ask questions and make sure products designed for water system cleaning are being used at the correct concentration and left adequate time to complete the job. Utilize swabs to inspect that the cleaning procedure is working. Again, opening a regulator and swabbing it for microbial growth post line cleaning will provide all the evidence needed.

• Sanitizers: Is there a routine use of water sanitizers? It may be necessary to pull a sample from the drinker and test for bacteria and use this to correlate to an adequate dosage of chlorine or hydrogen peroxide because the water on farms will respond differently to each sanitizer. What works beautifully on one operation may be too much or too little for another.

• Field Experience: A company that was struggling with E coli challenges in young poults found their water storage setup was resulting in a loss of chlorine residual by the time the slow moving water reached the poults. A switch to a stabilized hydrogen peroxide during the brooding period made a difference in bird health. Stabilized products tend to hold their sanitizing residual for much longer than chlorine or even chlorine dioxide so can be a useful tool during vulnerable points like early brooding, onset of lay for or at move for turkeys. A broiler complex was struggling with high 7 day mortality with chicks often showing signs of E coli infections. The complex moved to stabilized hydrogen peroxide during the first week of production and the problem was significantly reduced.

• Additional products: How often are products such as vaccines, vaccine stabilizers, vitamins, organic acids, probiotics used in the system. While these may have benefits for the birds, they can be food sources for biofilm in water systems. The more operations steer away from good, clean, sanitized water, the greater the risks.

• Field Experience: We got a frantic SOS call from a producer with week old chicks and water systems clogged with a thick slimey goo. Turns out he had used an organic acid at the end of the last flock, did not clean water lines and then started the new flock on a probiotic. It turned into the perfect recipe for a water system disaster that even raising the lines at night and filling with concentrated cleaner did not fix. He finally had to buy extra nipples and slowly replace and clean all the nipples in his 6 barns. Ouch!!
  

Is any monitoring being done to assure the sanitizer residual is effective? The sanitizer level needed when birds are young may be different than what is needed as they age. By establishing a continuous monitoring program, it is much easier to have an idea of what needs to be done throughout the flock to assure the water is clean and sanitized at a level that is the most beneficial for the birds.

Is there consistent documentation of sanitizer residual? It is hard to convince me that water sanitation is a major part of an operation if there is no proof of testing.

In conclusion, water is a crucial nutrient input for meat and egg production. Water supplies and systems can be plagued with a multitude of issues affecting everything from quality to quantity. Water supplies are dynamic and the nature of production barns and products used can create challenges.