Neil Baker ponders water troughs and housing design

Life at Rushywood in early 2012 has been all about improving the little things and we’ve been working our way through a list of improvements to cow housing.
We have installed more feed space in our fresh and milking heifer pens, but to do that we had to finally get the water troughs installed in the pen cross overs. These were planned to go in to replace the “temporary” ones we put in the feed rail space in 2005 – it is strange how permanent some temporary things are.
The effect of this is hard to measure directly, as there was already ample feed and water space in these pens, but now all the troughs are tip overs so cleaning is easier.
The strange thing is how the changes have affected cow behaviour, with a massive preference to drink from the new troughs. We have installed them slightly lower, but I think the main thing that makes them favourable is the fact the water is fresher and never allowed to stand. This does beg the question that the standard measurements for water space a cow may be counter to what cows want, which is to drink from fresh moving water rather than vats of standing water.
I guess the science behind the water trough space requirements is sound, but I’d question whether it is relevant in fully housed modern dairy cow management. This leads me onto the latest round of RDPE grants on offer in the South West for improving cow housing facilities to promote welfare. Just a note to whoever compiled this set of measurements for free stalls – 55in wide stalls are wrong. All good research I’ve seen says it’s more about stall surface than the division space, yet this isn’t mentioned.
These things and other observations of our cows’ behaviours need to be thought about and used in adaptations and future facility design. Perhaps as an industry we will think differently when subsidies and grants dry up, because then the world market reality will hit – a fail-safe in these situations is to ask whether you would make those decisions with 100% your own money?
Neil Baker:Dairy Update farmer focus
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