Heated Drinking Water for Dairy Cows?

Abstract

Recently, dairy farmers and manufacturers repeatedly claimed that hea- ted drinking water could improve feed intake, milk yield, and animal health, especially in high yielding dairy cows. This was the reason for an examination (4 trial periods) which was carried out at the Experimental Station for Livestock Biology and Ecological Farming of the University of Hohenheim. The influence of heated drinking water (24°C, 17°C, 24°C) was compared with the effect of cold water with a constant tempe- rature of 3°C using feed- and water intake, milk yield, milk constituents, and drinking behaviour as examination parameters. The trials yielded the following results: - daily intake of roughage and concentrate feed - not influenced; - daily water intake - significant influence in some cases (more cold water was drunk); - total daily drinking duration - significantly longer for cold water, slower intake; - daily milk yield (FPCM) - insignificant tendency towards higher milk yield with cold water; - milk fat content - insignificant tendency towards higher values with cold water; - live body mass - not influenced; - selection trial: 94.4% of the daily water intake in the form of warm water - reduced excess heat of the high yielding dairy cow with cold water. Therefore, heating the drinking water for dairy cows to 17°C or 24°C in order to increase the milk yield does not make sense. Furthermore, hea- ting to 24°C must be expected to require a converted 2.4 kWh/cow*day. This corresponds to daily electricity costs of approximately DM 0.54/cow*day, which could be compensated for through a yield increase of about one litre per day, which, however, was impossible to realize. If the only goal is to guarantee frost-free water supply, more cost-efficient solutions certainly offer themselves.