Hello and welcome to a discussion on water hygiene within the, production animal sector. So, my name is Ben South, and I work as a poultry vet, predominantly. So water hygiene is at the forefront of Our, one of our important aspects for poultry health, especially.
But I also am veterinary advisor for farm water, as a business, who provide solutions for water hygiene, in, in production animals. So, Learning objectives today, understand the composition of water and how those changes within that, that structure and, and, makeup may cause threats to our animals and, and production. Trying to understand on farm where the water quality may be failing, you may be.
Using mains water or your clients maybe using mains water as a, as a primary feed, but the quality can often change dramatically across the farming system. Consider how those water quality issues may be interfering with livestock production. Now, it's not something that's as obvious in things like the dairy or, or beef sector where we have .
Animals that are much better adapted at dealing with larger bacterial loads, but certainly it's something that we are experiencing with farm water that actually we can make, improvements in those areas, . One thing to understand is, that we're not just talking water hygiene, and that we're also looking at the makeup of biofilm within the water system structures on the farm. Quite good to understand, and certainly I'll go through today, understand if you are experiencing a potential problem that you want to investigate further on site, whether it's in a, a pig unit or a dairy setup, where and how sampling techniques are gonna be used and, and where to send them, and what, what to do with them, ultimately.
And then I'll, I'll talk about a little bit about. The resolutions or the possible resolutions that you could look at for solving those water hygiene issues on the farm. So it might be slightly basic, but it's definitely worth considering, the water supply from the very beginning.
So, I've been dairy vet, working with beef farms, and I've moved into the poultry sector, and all the farms that I get involved with, have pretty complex and multiple-sourced water systems. Whether. It's main supply coming in, and then, extra borehole filling in for, when there's extra amounts of water being needed, or whether there's, rainwater harvesting systems or several boreholes that are being drawn upon.
And the, the drive for sustainable water use within the farming industry is certainly becoming more and more at the forefront of people's thoughts, and certainly local councils and and government are looking at ways in which they can mitigate severe or significant draws on main supply. Certainly when it comes to. The, the pressures of building new houses in an area, there might be, .
Significant draw on mains that was never there, and therefore local dairy farms especially might, be requested, or certainly grants being given to move off mains and onto, other sources of water. So if we look at the main supply, you know, we've got a nice consistent supply. We're obviously being paid, for that supply.
The, the authorities will be contracted to provide potable water, but at the, point at which that water arrives on farms. So when we talk about potability or potability, the one thing that, although there's a lot of areas within that. The one thing we're concerned about is bacterial load, and potable water will have zero bacterial load because that is, deemed.
Sufficient to be drunk by humans, . The demand on that mains supply is certainly increasing, with population increases and, and new housing. So, mains is there.
It's an option. It's getting more expensive. But certainly, something that a lot of farms will be pulling away from or being encouraged to move away from.
So then we have the boreholes or private well systems where we're ultimately drilling down into. Aquifers and drawing upon the groundwater sources. Most boreholes are fairly consistent, but trying to find a good, aquifer underground can be quite complicated and very difficult, so multiple holes may be dug before, a, a suitable source has been found.
During the seasons, from, you know, winter to summer, though the quality of that water will definitely fluctuate as we see. Water running off and and concentrating potentially during droughts or diluting and causing a lot of runoff during during the winter period. It's obviously free water, and once the capital cost of, of drilling the boreholes has been, paid off.
And there's definitely incentives from various industries. So it's certainly in the dairy sector, there's incentives to look at those alternative water sources. .
They will certainly need some form of . Filtration to get the, the solids out. There'll be also, you know, sands and grits that will be in suspension, so microfilters are are absolute paramount for that, but.
There will also be certainly a, because we have no treatment on that water, there'll be a, a, a large risk to Different organisms within that water source. Less of a, risk to rainwater harvesting, but certainly a risk. So then we look at some of alternative sources of water.
And I've, I've seen, seen them all. So, we have rainwater harvesting, where you're literally just collecting water off, off the shed roofs and storing them into large, water storage tanks. Any stagnant water has the potential to build, pathogens or, or biofilm and, and bacterial load.
But also, Diversion of rivers or pumping out of rivers, damming of certain streams, having, you know, having reservoirs as well, all the . Type all these sort of open water systems, that are delivering to farms have the potential for unknown water quality, whether it's minerals, macro minerals, or, or, or pathogens. So, sorry, organic organic matter.
Certainly, some form of water treatment would be necessary on, on both boreholes and other open systems. So water is obviously. Made up of, a lot of different molecules.
We have macronutrients and micronutrients that are, can be, suspended and, and contained within the matrix of, of the water. They all have benefits and, to, to, to life, and cells within both humans and, and, and production animals' bodies. So.
It's good to, certainly if your clients are opening up new water sources, new boreholes, I would certainly be running quite, comprehensive water, testing on that, on those samples. Usually a potable screen is, is what you'll need with, and it'll look through all the macro micronutrients and, and come up with certain levels within there. And different areas in the country may have.
Particularly high levels of different metals, for example, and. You know, within reason, there's not a problem, but if there is excessive amounts of, let's say, iron or heavy metals, certainly palatability has a, has a huge impact, because of that. So things like pigs and, and dairy cattle, certainly would be put off drinking certain high high metal, water sources.
Not a lot that we can do in terms of adjusting, that, that mineral content, but certainly with, when it comes to metals, it's something we can do. We can philtre them out, we can, pull them out of suspension and improve the quality of that water. Unfortunately, filtration systems can get quite expensive.
But it's certainly worth investigating the, the matrix of, of the water first before looking at bacterial control because if you've, if you've got huge amounts of minerals in the water, then you're gonna be, there's a lot of potential to. Encourage bacterial growth, and no matter what you do, you're gonna always fir up the water lines because of it. So, if we look at the potential for, organic, organisms in, in, in the water, obviously, there's a, a huge number of bacteria that, you know, we're not really concerned about, but have the potential to be floating around in, in, in the water.
If we look at certain pathogens that might interfere with production animal health, things like leptospirosis. Campylobacter, the, all the coliforms, Pseudomonas, Salmonella specifically, and, and the brachysyrus. These are known pathogens to livestock, and, and poultry.
They have the potential to survive. Large, periods of time in water, if not thrive in the water. You know, if we, if we take our coliforms, for example, Enterococcus, Pseudomonas, those sort of bacteria are very successful at colonising water sources.
And we, obviously, we, there are severe health conditions that can arise from those, if not zoonotic conditions, you know, Lepto, Pseudomonas, Sona, it's all. Things that we should be concerned about as a zoonosis. Often stagnant stagnant water.
So if you're collecting rainwater, if you're pulling up water from a borehole and storing it in large vessels, those large storage vessels can, if they're not replenished very quickly, they can create biofilm. We can have, you know, they're sitting in the sun, for example, in the, in the, in warmth, warming up. We've got great potential for, bacterial growth.
Even if you're pulling in clean water from the mains, putting it into a storage tank, that we do have potential to, for contamination to begin post cleaning from the, from the mains taps. So, there are obviously. Points at which we need to, well, you can already probably see the areas where you might want to test water for, for bacterial content.
Looking at viruses, protozoa, these all have the potential to survive in water, whether they are there initially, but certainly, if, more water becomes contaminated, they'll have, a good, good ability to stay in water. . You know, we know bovine tuberculosis, it spreads pri primarily through shared water sources from, badger and deer populations and from cattle to cattle.
Yoni on, on dairy farms and, and beef, beef lots, certainly, . A great concern, . We have obviously the threats of African swine fever, poor sine epidemic virus, these are viruses again that may not.
Be found in water directly, but if, if contamination occurs, will be transmitted via via water very easily and certainly won't die once they're in water. Protozoa, we can detect in water like bacteria. It takes a little bit more, time, and there's any specific labs that can do it.
But things like cryptosporidium in calves and, and giardia in, in pigs, you know, these, flagellated protozoa are very successful at colonising and surviving, in, in water. So an area that's certainly in the poultry industry we are very concerned about or focused on would be biofilm matrix. So biofilm is a sort of a polymer.
Substance that, is produced by certain bacteria, Pseudomonas being one of them. And it, the bacteria create this, sort of slimy layer that you might have seen inside water troughs, or if you've done some plumbing work inside the, the, the lining of the pipes. And Basically provides protection for those bacteria to multiply, away from flowing water, oxygen bubbles, and the bacteria can grow and grow and grow over time.
And as it does so, will seed the water with, free, free living bacteria. So you can have a, a situation where you might have very old water pipes within a, within a farm system. You're drawing in water from the mains.
There's not a problem with that water, but then it starts moving through the farm water system, through the pipes, through the various troughs or storage systems where biofilm is present. As it flows, bacteria will be leaching out of the biofilm, moving into the water, and let's say for example you, you warm that water up to add some milk powder to it, you can quickly see a scenario where you may, Incubate A low level of coliform riddled back water, with some milk, warm it up at about 40 degrees, and you soon have, exponential amounts of bacterial growth. And then you go and introduce that into a neonatal calf.
And you wonder why that calf has severe, diarrhoea, in the preceding days. So, those sort of scenarios are definitely present on farms, and I've definitely seen it. You know, the farmer suggests, you know, there's no problem with my water.
I've got mains, but actually, it's, it's. The biofilm further down the line in the 30 year old water system that is actually driving the problem. It's definitely hard to get rid of, but certain chemicals and certainly certain cleaning regimes will, attack biofilm very easily and start removing it, almost instantaneously.
Biofilm is also, critical if you're, you know, if you're adding antimicrobials to the water to, to treat certain animals, you know, pigs and poultry, for example. If you're running anti anti antibiotics through that waterline and there's biofilm present, there's, . Bacteria within the biofilm have a great advantage in that they are semi-protected from it, which will, in the long run promote potential for resistance to certain anti antibiotics, and we've seen, certainly on poultry sites that.
Over time, a very contaminated water system, can really propagate quite resistant, bacteria. So, some photos of, of various forms of, algal or bio biofilm contamination. The, the top right-hand picture there is a boroscope into a, into a chicken line, and you can see where my scope scraped the side of the pipe.
That's, it should be a white pipe, but unfortunately, we have, Severe biofilm buildup around the, the, the nipple, which probably, It's causing it to fail, which means we're, we're not providing a suitable amount of water availability to those birds anyway, but what water we are providing is, is likely to be seeded with contaminants. And obviously, in the cattle industry, you know, if you're, if you're working in that sector, it, it's, you know, you've probably walked many yards where the, the troughs are full of algal growth. You know, cows are dropping feed into those troughs on a, on a regular basis, which will just be fueling algal growth, very quickly.
So if we think, just as a bit of a recap, . The variable sources of water, it's, it's certainly the starting point. Don't always trust that means it means it's clean.
Because as we move down the line, we have the, the influence of various minerals, the bacteria, potentially from biofilm, introduction of viruses, protozoa. They all add in to the, experience that the livestock have with taking on that water, whether it's palatability or, the potential for, gut disruption and, and, bacterial burden. Or sort of pathogen exposure.
So, what can we do on sites to, start thinking a little bit about water hygiene? And I know it's not at the forefront of, of every, vet's mind. Certainly, dairy vets and pig vets, it might not be something that, you've discussed a lot of with, with farmers, but there might be the odd case or, the odd client that you know of that, you know, actually.
You're a bit concerned about how water is, is controlled and treated on site, . And so there are a huge range of available testing options when it comes to Water, and I suppose it's trying to work out what you're trying to find out, what's it for, and what the, the end goal might be. So if.
I would always choose one or two areas on the farm to select for sampling. I would certainly take a sample at the beginning of the, of the system, so the source, as close to the mains tap, as close to the borehole or, or rainwater and storage vessel as you can. And that will give you an idea of basically what you're starting with.
So we, you know, whether it's mains water or borehole, we need to know what, what's coming in, and then we can also sample what's coming out of the end and work out what's going on in the middle. So the other. Sampling area would certainly be at what we call end of line.
But it's basically as far down the water system as we can. So, whether it's a tap in the dairy, or wash down tap, or, taking a sample directly from the, the incoming water to a trough, I certainly wouldn't dip sample in a water trough because that'll give you a, a, a false impression as to the quality of the water, because it's time to, to sit in the trough and, and. Grow all manner of things.
So certainly, you know, taking it from a, a free flowing source is, is ideal. And what I'd do is, you know, if it's a tap, I'll let it run for 30 seconds to 1 minute first, and then take a a free catch sample into a sterile pot. And then you can look at where you're gonna send it.
If you just want to know general bacterial load, so total viable count. I would, as a minimum, I would do TC and coliform testing, at Culture. And I think that's where, either red tractor or the line code or other assurance schemes will probably sit, and they'll give a guide as to what is acceptable.
I think in, in Cattle world, anything over 100, colony forming units, a mill is deemed. Too dirty. I still, I think that's a little high.
In the poultry sector, it's a lot lower, and, you know, for humans, it's zero. So, I certainly would be lenient if there was a, a level of total viable count. But as long as there weren't any coliforms growing, I'd be fairly happy.
Any, any level of coliform growth, I think I'd be pretty suspicious of and, and nervous that they weren't gonna go on and either create biofilm or . Grow exponentially within the farm system. Other specific tests are available, but, you, you know, I'd probably start with a, a TBC coon test first.
We can go on to look at Pseudomonas specifically. Again, the protozoas are detectable, but it requires quite a large amount of water. And I said earlier, if, if your clients are digging or, or drilling a new borehole, they, the, excuse me, the the company that's doing that may actually provide, a screening test for the farmer, but certainly, I'd advise a, a complete potable screen.
First and foremost, so you have a, a bit of a mineral breakdown as well. There's definitely areas in the country where we see high levels of iron, which drive firring up of water lines, increase the likelihood of biofilm, you know, they damage, ballcock valves, they block up nipple lines in the poultry industry, so. We, on those farms, especially, we, we do spend a lot of money trying to remove those heavy metals out of the water.
And I think, that, that full potable screen is definitely worthwhile at some point, whether it's the first time they've dug the borehole or, you know, the first time they've actually considered what their water might be. So with those, you know, minimum 2 samples, but also the third sample could be somewhere where water's being stored. Probably, you know, a great example would be, on a, a calf rearing unit.
I'd probably sample water that's being used to make up calf milk, maybe before and after the boiler. I've been on some sites where boiler temperatures never. Exceed 42 degrees.
Well, if I was trying to grow coliforms in the incubator in, in our lab, I, I, you know, I'd stick it at 42 degrees. So we're, you know, those sort of areas are, are probably not thought of very much, but I'd certainly look at sampling before and after, some kind of storage vessel that might be on farm. And if you think about it, the, the The single source point, whether it's being sucked up from the borehole or from the mains, we have the lowest potential for bacterial burden.
And as that water divides and moves off and stored and, and splits off across the farm, maybe in a dairy where you have, a storage vessel that then water is recycled back into. Certainly, we see that from, cooling plates, for example. .
You, you then build the potential for . Bacterial and and potential pathogen and presence. So It, it seems fairly simple, and it definitely is, but it's getting, .
Production animal vets to start maybe thinking about, water hygiene in in a little bit more of a serious way. It's, it's not overlooked in the poultry industry. And, and I think certainly when we're talking about neonates, you know, piglet health, weaning pigs, piglets, especially.
Calf health, dairy calves, certainly around that weaning time, I think we can, you know, we're essentially, certainly in dairy cows. We're essentially dealing with a, monogastric neonate, you know, and, you know, chickens are susceptible because they are, you know, monogastric, and. Carbs are in a very similar way, and I think.
There is greater potential for. Water contaminants causing a problem on sites then then that's given, so. There's obviously a range of options in testing, and there's also a large range in terms of what the options are for farmers if, if a problem is, is diagnosed essentially or formulated.
So. We can, we can go cheap and cheerful. Things like chlorine tablets in, in storage tanks, have their place, potentially, but ultimately, their very short lifespan.
They, their effectiveness reduces over time, very quickly, as their concentration wanes. And ultimately, they tend to only kill free-living bacteria at the, at, in, whatever's in that, in that vessel at that time. They have zero action against any kind of biofilm in the pipework.
They are quite distasteful. So, if you've ever been in a, a highly chlorinated swimming pool, you know exactly what I mean. And, you know, you might be putting off cattle drinking it, at some point down the line.
So, I'd certainly be careful with chlorine tablets. They, for what they are, or to get the best effect from them. You need to make sure the water isn't being diluted, and you need a fair amount of them.
So it can be very costly, certainly on, on sites that use a lot of water, like, like the dairy sites. We move into an area which, of cleaners that are far more effective. Now, these are the cleaners that I'm, I'm familiar with, with the poultry sector.
I know little dairy sites produce things like parasitic acid, but, . I would, I would start thinking beyond parasitic acid as an option, to, to other options. And there are more effective water cleaners with, that have less corrosive properties.
Certainly chlorine, chlorine dioxide would be one of those, but we'll, we'll come to that in a second. So, if we look at the hydrogen peroxides. They are.
Well used in the poultry industry, for continual line cleaning. The, the nature of hydrogen peroxide is that it, it is. Very effective at removing and killing organic matter, so biofilm, it is, it is very good at destroying.
Now it has to be in contact with that biofilm over a fair period of time, in terms of, you know, either a very high concentration or a low concentration over a longer period of time. But we can successfully clean water, systems on a farm with a, a continual dosing hydro, low rate hydrogen peroxide. Chemical costs are certainly less than the the chlorine tablets, but.
They, they do come with a a potential cost depending on the amount of water that's being used. Sitting alongside hydrogen peroxides, you can use, liquid chlorine that's, you increase its potential by adding acids, but that gets a little bit complicated, and there are certain companies that, that sort of specialise in, in that alone. But they, they would, those sort of chlorine mixes that are continually dosing would sit along the at the same level as the hydrogen peroxide cleaners in their, in their effectiveness and and probably costs.
Hydrogen peroxide will diminish over time, especially as it's coming into contact with organic material. And generally the, the systems that are dosing those peroxide systems, or sorry, dosing the peroxide chemicals. Require fair amounts of maintenance, and, and farm input.
And so therefore, Unless you are on site, hands on all the time every day, like poultry farms, then if something goes wrong, you, you, you, you, you need some sort of alarming system really to, to detect that. So then we, we sort of step, I suppose, up in the, in the ability in terms of, water hygiene products and. There are many sites now that are reaching into chlorine dioxide as a, as a compound for complete biocidal effect, so.
The, the ability of chlorine dioxides to kill all organic materials, strip biofilm, remove odours from the water, so increase palatability. It can, it's, it's highly reactive, so, and, and will oxidise very quickly. So, heavy metals, it can be used a little bit expensive, but it can be used to, precipitate out, heavy metals that are, are, are in the water.
And we can get away with very low concentrations of chlorine dioxide, being dosed, continuously. For effective biofilm and, and, bacterial management or sorry. Organism management in the water line, and chlorine dioxide would be one of those systems that mains water companies would be using to clean the mains water, because it's, it's completely tasteless.
And most chlorine dioxide systems, certainly the, the system that, we, we, generate farm water, very mini minimal management required once, once set up. So if we look at chlorine dioxide, specifically, some of you may or may not have heard of it. It's, it's very different to chlorine.
So that's the 1st, 1st thing to, to, to remember. Chlorine dioxide is a gas, but when you force it into a liquid, it becomes very reactive, and. In doing so becomes a, a very potent biocide against bacteria, viruses, protozoa, any of that.
Very slimy, sticky, biofilm matrix. It has no taste or odour in the water, like chlorine. And it's, very effective.
Like I said, it, it's actually taking away, distasteful properties for, for, of water. There are A few ways of creating it, and. All of which are very dangerous, or using, precursors that are very corrosive and, and toxic to humans.
And the risk is that. The during the creation of chlorine dioxide is that you can have potential for chlorine gas to be released, which is obviously incredibly dangerous to humans. So there are systems out there that, rely on more.
Human interaction than others, and certainly if your farmers were thinking of, a, a complete water hygiene system on farm, then I would opt for a a hands off, internal generation system, and I'll go through the one that, I sort of help promote, I suppose, through farm water. It's certainly the safest one that that I've come across. Very effective over a range of water pH levels, and, and.
In its oxidisation, as it's removing and killing . All those sort of organic, pathogens or potential pathogens, will split into chlorites and chlorates, as it, as it breaks down. So as an example of, of how chlorine dioxide can be used on farm, I'll just run through, a very simple system, one of the very simple systems that farm water, has created.
It just help you have an idea of, of how these units are used on site. And I've got I've got some quite nice photos of, of some case studies as well. And ultimately, these, the, the, this system, on site.
So rather than using human power, it uses Venturi effect and will draw up those precursors of, hydrochloric acid and, and, and sodium chloride. Into a sealed reactor. And there it is forcing those precursors together to create chlorine dioxide at around, 2%.
So a very high percentage of, of chlorine dioxide. It's then introduced to water and, and reduced down to a, a, a much lower concentration, stored in a very small batch tank, and then using signals from a water metre will, Inject proportionally into that flow of water. So, whatever the pump is set at, and whatever the, the metre is reading, as the water is flowing by, small levels of chlorine dioxide will be injected into the, into the water system.
And these, these sort of proportional pump. Systems, whether it's chlorine dioxide or hydrogen peroxide, the further towards the source or the the the nearer the source you are. Treating the water, the better, the better really cos you're able to treat all the water that then flows across the site, whether it's through very complicated systems or not.
So this is, some photos of, of the generation system on, on site. And using this, this form of, pressurised, chlorine dioxide generation, allows for a very consistent and a very efficient way of producing chlorine dioxide. We have these cyst units on, on poultry, dairy, and, and pig sites.
And we are discovering new. New advantages of clean water, certainly in the dairy industry, that were less. Predictable, I suppose.
So, the units are quite simple and, and ultimately all the farmer has to do is change the barrels over, whenever the machine flashes and tells them to do so. . And because of the consistency and quality of chlorine dioxide, we can actually get away with very small levels.
I think it's, you know, 0.5 parts per million of, of chlorine dioxide in, in the water is all that's needed to maintain, very potent. Biocidal effects.
So, some farms that we've, we've got this on, certainly dairy farms are seeing, you know, they've either come with a problem. So all their vet has, has, done some water tests because of, problems that maybe are seen clinically in the cows. So, the, the, the top site was, had ongoing mastitis issues, with, erratia being cultured.
Battling, using a lot of antibiotics to try and correct those mastitis issues and actually it took the farmer. You know, went to the borehole, took, took those samples, and Saraa was found within the borehole itself. So, we were brought in to sort of come up with a solution for, total farm water hygiene.
And so now we are. Killing pathogens or potential bacteria at the very source of, of where that borehole comes out of the ground, and we're now putting clean water through, through the farm system, and you know, we're seeing . Although relatively anecdotal, because, you know, dairy systems are changing all the time, we are seeing quite positive change or very quick and very positive changes across the site, so.
The biggest one really is the quality of, of water troughs. This one here is, is of the site, you know, although we have food substrate. In the bottom of the tank, the water is absolutely gin clear and there's no algal growth whatsoever, so.
Because of that, what we see is that cattles are, are being less selective. Between troughs. There's less grouping around, single troughs, and, and the, the cows are far more spread out, certainly coming out of, the milking machines.
They, there's no favouritism, it seems, or sorry, certainly less favouritism than there ever was. They're spending less time cleaning the troughs, without a doubt, and. Also, the water that they were once spraying through the parlour systems, all the robots that, once contained erratia, now, now doesn't.
So, levels of mastitis soon, soon dropped quite away quite quickly. Obviously there are many variable factors when it comes to things like mastitis, but, washed down, contaminated washed down water was, certainly one of the, the, the most obvious ones. And on other sites, certainly in the, the poultry world, we get, the, the clean, clean nipple lines, you know, the, the, we had less failures when it comes to, supplying water to those birds.
We're seeing better gut health in general. So we're not challenging the gut with, High levels of of. Contaminated water, so general gut health in neonates, whether it's piglets or or or chicks, .
Has then led to improved FCRs on certain sites. In the cattle world, increased water intakes, increased dry matter intakes because of it. And, you know, probably, although it's very difficult to record because of, you know, variability and silage and all kinds of things, but we can assume that with intake increases, we're gonna have dry matter intake increases and therefore, Yeah, yield increases.
To a point, we are talking minimal gains, but in, in, in, you know, in big units, those minimal gains are, are worth a lot. Certainly early chick deaths in in the poultry industry is, is where clean water makes the biggest influence, and dirty water would soon cause a lot of mortality. And, you know, overall, clean water and clean pipework is, is, is certainly beneficial in terms of maintenance and plumbing and all kinds of things.
So it's a little insight into Water hygiene and trying to encourage clinical vets that are working in the production animal world to have it in, in as part of their, concern, I suppose, if they're investigating certain outbreaks. Certainly in the pig industry, I'd be thinking, scouring piglets and, and diarrhoea, that's one area I would certainly think about, well, what's the water doing along with everything else. In the cattle industry, I'd be thinking again, neonatal scours, potentially poor food conversion, if you're thinking of like, steers or, or beef, production systems.
Maybe sites in the dairy industry where you're getting uncontrolled seasonal mastitis issues, where boreholes are becoming contaminated or more contaminated at certain times of the year. And if you're working in the poultry industry, then obviously I would have thought that water hygiene is, is already there and, and you're thinking about it, but . And if you're not, you certainly should be.
So, so, again, chick mortality, high chick mortality, potential contaminants in the hatchery, you know, if the water is contaminated coming in and being contamins contaminated being used in the, to create humidity and things in hatches, it's certainly a great avenue for, for bacterial contamination. And think about, you know, those dairy calves, if you're using formulated milk. What, what quality is the water, you know, a lot of those pathogens are, are, ferment lactose very easily.
And so if you're mixing milk powders with warm contaminated water, are you just potentiating the problem, . And obviously, you know, if you do have any questions, I'm, I'm attainable, and, and can answer questions freely. But yeah, yeah, that's the end of the lecture today, and I hope you enjoyed listening.