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Science of Hydration in Poultry Introduction Last year we experienced recordbreaking temperatures across the country. With the expected rise in g l o ba l te m p e r a t u re s t h o s e sweltering summer months could be beyond our current means of coping with the heat. Ever y summer we experience days when just spending a few minutes in a poultry house feels unbearable, and for many broilers reaching the end of the cycle it is – with mortality soaring. Thankfully the poultry industry has made a great deal of progress in the area of ventilation and cooling. Now we have technology to deal with temperatures in excess of 40oC has already been well tested. Poultry farmers can use daily mortality patterns throughout the flock and visual appraisals to get a general idea of what's going on, but this is a very subjective measure of performance. However, there is a reliable way to accurately measure flock per formance that you may already have or can gain access at relatively little expense. Monitoring water consumption on a daily basis has been shown to be a reliable measure of broiler performance. Chickens, in general, can cope with high temperatures. The domestic fowl has a healthy body temperature of between 40°C and 41.7oC, chicks under three
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weeks of age being at the lower end. With the bird's metabolism being quite high, its ability to lose heat is imperative and it does this by radiation, conduction and the evaporation of water. Chicks, being small, have a high surface area in comparison to their body mass, which means heat is lost from the body relatively easily; as the bird increases in size this ratio changes, though, and for the hefty 3kg broiler radiation of heat via the skin is not going to be enough to keep its temperature down Are You Delivering Enough Water? Water is the most important nutrient consumed by an animal. A bird can survive several weeks without food, but only a few short days without water. Broilers drink a great deal of water. During its lifetime, a 5-pound (2.3-kg) broiler will consume (8.2-kg) of water, compared to approximately 3.6-3.9 kg (Lacy, 2002). Pesti and co-workers (1985) For example, a 10-day old bird will drink about approx. 60 ml water during a 24-hr period while a 60-day old bird will about 355 ml. While it is good to know how much water birds require, it is also important to be sure that water is delivered to your birds. Nearly every poultry farmer has houses with nipple watering systems and
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Dr. Yogesh Paharia B.V.Sc , M.V.Sc (Nutrition)
every poultry farmer should have one nipple per 10 to 12 birds at 5 weeks of age. However, we have recently found that nipples with low flow rates can decrease flock performance. They found that adequate flow rates (in ml/ minute) could be estimated by multiplying 7 ml time's bird age in weeks and adding 20. So, adequate nipple flow rates for 4-week old birds would be 7 x 4= 28 + 20 = 48 ml/min. Delivering More water than the birds need is not a problem, but delivering less can reduce performance. Water Consumption is correlated with Feed Consumption A critical fact that poultry farmers may not be aware of is that feed and water consumption are very closely related. In short, this means that when water consumption changes 98% of the time feed consumption changes. Because of this fact, if we accurately monitor daily water consumption, we can get a very good idea of daily feed consumption. We notice that when there is an increase or decrease in feed or water consumption, there is a c o r re s p o n d i n g i n c re a s e o r decrease in the other. We can use Poultry Planner | Vol. 23 | No.04 | April - 2021
