Drinker design affects water intake and wastage in the nursery 

During the first few days after weaning, pigs often experience body weight loss as they adapt to eating solid food. During this time period, they are also observed to drink excessively and develop abnormal oral behaviour such as belly nosing. Some recently published research suggests that this excessive drinking may be from piglets’ attempting to satiate their hunger through gut fill.

Gut fill through water intake may affect establishment of feeding behaviour. Using drinker devices other than the standard nipple drinker may ease piglets’ transition at weaning by facilitating initiation of feeding and preventing development of behaviour problems. This experiment examined the effect of drinker type on water and food intake, growth rates, and belly nosing in newly weaned piglets. 

Eighteen pens of 15 piglets each (270 piglets) were weaned at 18 days of age. They were housed in pens containing one of three drinker devices: a standard nipple, a push-lever bowl or a float bowl.  Piglets’ water and feed intake, water usage, body weight and behaviour were examined for two weeks post weaning.

Piglets with nipple drinkers wasted more water than those using other types of drinker.  The amount of wastage was 1114, 295 and 186 ml respectively for nipple, float and push-lever type drinkers. Those piglets with float bowls consumed less water than other piglets.  Consumption was 879, 475 and 774 ml respectively for the three drinker types. Piglets with push-lever bowls spent less time at the feeder than other piglets, although no differences were detected in feed intake or overall daily gain between any of the drinker types. Piglets with push-lever bowls also tended to perform less piglet-directed nosing behaviour than piglets with the float bowl.

The researchers noted that piglets appear to use more water during the first two days after weaning with certain drinker types. However, they say, piglets do not appear to attain satiety through water consumption because most of the water used during the first few days after weaning is wasted. This excessive drinking and water wastage can be abated through use of push-lever drinkers without negative implications on feed intake and growth rates. 

WHJ comment:  Nipple drinkers wasted about six times more water than the push-lever bowl type, which has significant implications for the cost of water and for manure disposal. The disadvantage of the float-type bowl is that it reduces water intake, probably due to a build-up of debris such as feed particles in the bowl making the water less palatable. Push-lever type bowls usually have a very shallow bowl, which is easily cleaned out and less likely to accumulate debris. This work suggests that choice of drinker type in the nursery is perhaps more crucial than we thought and that a push-lever bowl drinker is most suitable type for nursery pigs.

 Reference:  S. Torrey, E. L. M. Toth Tamminga and T. M. Widowski (2008). Effect of drinker type on water intake and waste in newly weaned piglets. J. Anim Sci., doi: 10.2527/jas.2007-0632