A drop in milk production is a dairy cow’s first response to water restriction, and, because of this, it is vital to compensate water losses through water intake to retain optimal homoeostasis.
Share This Anne Boudin, of the French national institute of agricultural research, explains losses of water are vital for many bodily functions, including evaporation for thermoregulation, excretion for digestion and milk secretion for reproduction.
Ms Boudin says studies which restrict a cow’s access to water by up to 50 per cent of requirements, have found milk dropped on the first day of the restriction, and this decrease was also correlated with a drop in the animal’s feed intake.
After seven days on the trial, analysis of the results showed milk production had decreased by between 1 and 2.5kg/day.
She explains further studies, where cows were granted access to water once or twice per day compared with ad-lib access, found water intake decreased by an average of 13.5 per cent, resulting in a decrease in milk production of 2.6 per cent.
Analysis This may not seem like much, but further analysis of the study shows milk production was influenced more by water restriction combined with hot weather and, in these conditions, milk dropped by an average of 15.6 per cent.
Evaporation increases with increased ambient temperature as this is a way to decrease body temperature.
In hot weather a lack of adequate drinking water is very detrimental to milk production, as it impairs latent heat loss through evaporation and also impairs the cow’s ability to adapt to the heat.
A dairy cow’s drinking water intake is the total water intake minus water ingested with feed.
Despite this, due to the lower levels of water in the diet and increased intake of drinking water, overall the total water intake stays relatively consistent.

If they didn’t get full, people wouldn’t leave bags and stacks of stuff on top of or around the bins, and it wouldn’t look so bad,” Martin said.
“And we wouldn’t have to spend time separating the trash from the recyclables.” If people would rinse out their soda cans and bottles, bees—and rodents—would not be attracted to the bins.
It would also cut down on odor, Martin said.
“In addition to being unsightly, [it] consumes county staff time, adds additional wear and tear and fuel costs to county vehicles leading to the use of more of your tax dollars.” The recycling center has one full time and one part time employee, plus an inmate from the county jail most days.
Each time a full truck of recycling comes into the facility it takes three-plus hours for the men to separate the materials from the trash.
That never happens,” Martin said.
Martin estimates about 35 percent of the plastic that is collected is non-recyclable material, Kelley said.
“It’s marked #1, but we only take #1 and #2 plastics that have screw tops—and the tops need to be removed.
The two types of plastic accepted should be placed in different bins as well, Martin said.
They can help us by recycling the proper materials in the proper way.” Recycling bins are located at Highway 9 and Torrington Drive, off the Morrison Moore bypass at Radar Ridge and during business hours at the recycling center, 1642 Red Oak Flats Road.

A recently shared photo demonstrates definitively that not only is buying bottled water wholly unnecessary in Iceland; it can also be even more expensive than you might guess.
Þórólfur Júlían Dagsson, a member of the Pirate Party in Suðurnes, posted the above photo in a status about the larger problems of the price of Icelandic goods in Iceland.
“In Iceland we’re supposed to be ensuring sustainability in food,” he writes.
“But when has that policy actually produced real security and affordable food?
Fish is incredibly expensive.
The same can be said about lamb meat and the water in stores which is more expensive than anywhere else in the western world.” As can be seen, the price for a litre of whole milk from the grocery store Hagkaup is 142 ISK.
One litre of water—which, by the way, is the same water that comes out of the tap—is 165 ISK.
Recently, the Icelandic government launched an initiative to try and educate tourists that there is no need to buy water in stores.
Iceland actually ranks first in the world in Water and Sanitation on the Environmental Performance Index.
Reduces plastic waste, and gives you a fine souvenir from Iceland to bring home.

A Queensland dairy farmers collective is calling on Australians to shell out more loose change for milk with a 10 cent levy per litre to go directly back to farmers in drought.
Over 10,000 people had signed the change.org petition seven days after it was established by the QDO to help farmers cope with the soaring cost of grain and fodder for milking cows.
The QDO said they were inspired to establish the campaign following a recent viral video from Kyogle dairy farmer Shane Hickey in which he outlined his struggles.
"Shane hit the nail on the head with his first viral video," QDO president Brian Tessmann said in a statement.
"People now get just how underpaid our farmers are and have shown that they want to do something to help."
The petitions calls on Coles and Woolworths to collect the levy by increasing prices and for milk processors to guarantee to pass the full amount back to farmers.
"We believe a holistic solution involving industry and government is needed to drive meaningful and long-term reform in the dairy sector," a Woolworths spokesperson said in a statement.
The company says it has raised more than $7 million for Rural Aid to assist farmers, while Coles said it had contributed almost $11 million in donations, grants and interest-free loans to farmers and rural communities affected by drought.
Mr Tessmann backed the increase, saying grain prices had doubled, and hay in NSW and QLD was almost not securable even as prices had gone up "astronomically".
"We are hoping to give it a few weeks and then go back to the supermarkets, they are the key to it.