The role of water in animal breeding

• Published in: Italian journal of agronomy Vol. 1; no. 3s; pp. 519 - 527
• Main Authors: Enne, Giuseppe, Greppi, Gianfranco, Serrantoni, Monica
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 23.09.2010
• ISSN: 1125-4718; 2039-6805
• DOI: 10.4081/ija.2006.s3.519

The role of water in animal breeding must be extended to a wider context than the animal production area, considering that 70% of the water used in the world is consumed by the whole production chain (agriculture and animal production). Therefore has a great importance the connection with other fields of the chain, as the fodder-growing and the cereal-growing, together with the evaluation and quantification of the environmental impacts. Water, that plays an essential role in the breeding, assumes different importance in relation to the animal class (birds, fish and mammals) and to the animal species. Therefore are extremely different the water requirements and the water consumptions, that are moreover strongly influenced by many factors, such as the dry matter, the climatic breeding conditions, together with the individual animal features. All that represents the starting point to determine the strategies and the ways of the water giving in animal breeding, related to the technological, project and management aspects. Besides the quantitative aspects, water must be considered as food, because it is necessary to animal survival. The importance of the quality of water used in animal breeding and its nutritional role is closely related to the qualitative characteristics and to the presence of residual and polluting substances. The animal production chain, moreover, can produce environmental impacts on the aquatic ecosystems and therefore a particular attention goes to end uses of water as output of the whole animal production chain and to the quantification of the impacts, that is extremely complicate and difficult, depending on many variables. The considerations related to animal production chain assume a different value in the productive context of the management of the water resources in the third countries.