The Importance of Water Quality on Growth was among the topics discussed last week as part of the 2010 Manitoba Swine Seminar.

Dr Martin Nyachoti, a professor with the University of Manitoba's Faculty of Agricultural and Food Sciences, says there has been little research conducted on water but, from what has been done, we know enough to develop best management practices for the use of water in hog production.

Dr Martin Nyachoti-University of Manitoba

My understanding is that there's regions for example even in Manitoba where access to good quality water is a big problem.

From what we hear is that this resource is not limitless.

At one point it's going to become a major constraint of any livestock industry including hog production.

I think conservation is key.

Water is a very important resource, we can't afford to waste it.

There are many ways or at least things that producers can do, for example using water drinkers that minimise water wastage, making sure that diets are formulated correctly so that pigs don't drink more than they actually need to drink, keeping pigs in proper environmental conditions to minimise their need to play around with water, that's important and also minimising the amount of water we use for manure handling or manure management.

So there's quite a few things that people can do to minimise water wastage.

Dr Nyachoti says availability of water is a major concern and it's probably going to be a limiting factor for the expansion of hog production in some parts of the world where supplies are limited.

He says it's important to keep track of how much water is used for the various functions, including drinking and cleaning barns, to identify where water can be conserved.