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This study evaluated the water disappearance of growing-finishing pigs using a split-plot design with a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement: Room Temperature (Thermoneutral (TN) vs. Hot; Main Plot) and Drinker Type (Nipple vs. Cup; Sub Plot). A total of 320 pigs housed in 4 rooms (8 pens/room; 10 pigs/pen) were used. Two rooms were at a constant TN temperature (decreasing from 24 to 18°C from start to end of the study) and 2 rooms at a Hot temperature (30°C daytime and 20°C nighttime). Pens had fully-slatted concrete floors with 1 feeder/pen and either a nipple or a cup drinker; floor space was 0.67m2/pig. Pigs were phase fed industry standard corn-soybean diets to meet or exceed NRC (2012) requirements. Pigs were weighed at the start and end of, and bi-weekly throughout the study; all feed additions were recorded. Water disappearance was measured using a meter fitted to the water line supplying each pen.
There were no Drinker Type by Room Temperature interactions. Drinker Type did not affect growth performance, but water disappearance was greater for nipple than cup drinkers. Pigs on the Hot treatment were lighter, grew more slowly, and had numerically greater water disappearance than those on the Thermoneutral treatment.
These results suggest that drinker type can affect water disappearance rates; further research is needed to quantify the amount of water wastage from pigs under commercial conditions.
K. Vande Pol N. S. Grohmann T. E. Weber M. J. Ritter M. Ellis. Effect of hot temperature and drinker type on growth performance of and water disappearance by growing-finishing pigs. Journal of Animal Science, Volume 94, Issue suppl_2, 1 April 2016, Pages 150–151, https://doi.org/10.2527/msasas2016-320
