"Make sure you have clean water, it is 87% of your milk."

"Besides our cows, we used to keep pigs as well, this is where we cooperated with feeding trials from the food producers. Many of these researches we were also able to use for our dairy cattle." says vincent Gerritsen from the town of Maurik in the province of Gelderland. It turned out that clean water pipes are enormously beneficial for the utilization of rations. For cows, clean water is also extremely important for production. It is of course by far the largest component of your end product: milk. By sharing my experiences, I'm hoping to help colleagues look at the drinking trough with different eyes and take a step forward."

Investing in your animals' health has a high rate of return on investment

Together with his son Max, who is currently still at the HAS in Dronten, 215 cows are kept on Gerritsen's farm. Until 2019, they also kept some pigs in addition, but in the meantime, they have completely focused on the dairy branch. "Years ago we already took into account that we would have to support two families, so we have steadily made the necessary investments. On the one hand, this has been an expansion of the number of cattle, and on the other hand, these have been investments in business operations."

One of these investments was the Watter system, which ensures that the animals' drinking water is free of biofilm and harmful germs. As a result, the cows are happy to go to the drinking trough and drink as much as they want, without ingesting unnecessary pathogens. "The effect of the Watter system is undisputed. Especially with dairy cattle, you see the mucus disappear from the drinking trough incredibly quickly, and in retrospect, the timing couldn't be better. We started in early 2018, followed by the first hot, dry summer in recent years. Throughout the period, the troughs - even in the pasture - remained free of algae, keeping the cows drinking a lot. This has enabled them to cope with the heat stress enormously well, and for good feed intake and their health, this is incredibly important."

"How does that Watter system work?"

It sounds peculiar: adding disinfectant to water to improve health. What happens when an animal drinks this, for example, to rumen bacteria? Microbiologist Reinoud Homan explains: "The Watter system purifies water by electrolysis, as is common in aerospace, for example. The main difference with chemical agents such as chlorine and hydrogen peroxide is the degradability of the agent. In contrast to those types of substances, the product of electrolysis is easily degraded by the body of humans or animals. As independently demonstrated, Watter leaves no chemical residues: it removes microorganisms in the drinking water and disintegrates into water. Thus, nothing ends up in the animal and does not disturb the microflora, including rumen bacteria."

Read about the Watter-System in more detail

Happy and healthy cows enjoying clean drinking water

Prevent chemical residues in your milk

The experience in pig keeping has led the dairy farmer onto other aspects within livestock farming: food safety: "As a producer, you are responsible for your end product, in our case milk. In my opinion, as farmers, we should sometimes look more critically at what we give an animal because this is also what an animal excretes. That is why I am not a fan of chemical products, such as chlorine or hydrogen peroxide. There are colleagues who use these, but I have my doubts about the efficacy and safety for the animal. Cheap is then soon expensive. Let alone that residues end up in the milk; the last thing we want is a fipronil crisis in the dairy sector."

Before Vincent decided to purchase the Watter system, he checked with the dairy factory whether the device was approved: "Not only is Watter approved by the Ctgb, but the NZO has verified that the technology does not leave any chemical residues behind and is therefore safe in dairy production. This offers me the certainty that you can purify the water properly and safely without chemicals. The sticky slime in the troughs is gone, the water is clear and the cows like to drink. We have been extremely satisfied with the Watter system for years."

Discover Watter

Do you want to discover first-hand what clean drinking water for your cattle can mean for your company? Want to know more? Feel free to contact us!

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