Water consumption and wastage behaviour in pigs: implications for antimicrobial administration and stewardship

Abstract

Daily water use and wastage patterns of pigs have major effects on the efficacy of in-water antimicrobial dosing events when conducted for metaphylaxis or to treat clinical disease. However, daily water use and wastage patterns of pigs are not routinely quantified on farms and are not well understood. We conducted a prospective, observational 27-day study of the daily water use and wastage patterns of a pen group of 15 finisher pigs reared in a farm building. We found that the group of pigs wasted a median of 36.5% of the water used per day. We developed models of the patterns of water used and wasted by pigs over each 24-h period using a Bayesian statistical method with the brm() function i..