Importance of Measuring Water Intake in Dairy Animals: A Review

Abstract: Importance of water for dairy animals is known since immortal time. These days, availability of quality water for dairy animals in many parts of the world has become a challenge. Water is considered as most important nutrient for dairy animals and should be given priority. It is used for drinking, feeding, cleaning, and many other dairy farm operations. Water intake is affected by several factors like production levels, body weight, dry matter of feed offered, mineral contents, ambient temperature, etc. Apart from these aspects water intake, now days, can be used to predict milk yield, dry matter intake, daily gain and even oestrus level too. Restricting water intake may affect drinking behavior of cows. These days, advance systems are used to measure the accurate amount of water intake by the dairy cows so that other related aspects could be studied more effectively. Effective study of water consumption under different physiological states of dairy animals may help in understanding dairy production in a better way. This article aims to enlighten new horizons of water intake for dairy animals which may help in effective and progressive ways to create easiness in animal welfare and farm operations.