Someone asked a question recently, “Why don’t birds pass out urine”. There is only one answer to the question, fecal excrete of birds has a higher percentage of water compared to any other animal and the anatomical make up make them perspire through the skin. This answer gives a clue to what stress a bird with much hours of water deprivation may be subjected to. During water deprivation, birds (every winged creature) keeps on perspiring (releases of water in the form of moisture through the skin) which means the process of dehydration begins to set in. At this point i will explain some of the video we posted recently, i came across this cell housing three of our layers with the nipple drinker blocked, this must have occurred for nothing lesser than 24 hours.I’ll need to remind you that each egg contains nothing less than 70% water. After this experience, egg production (in this cell) stopped and only resumed two days ago which means production resumed after 10 days of dehydration.
During dehydration, the system of the birds tries to stop every process of water loss, and one major way in which laying birds losses water is through the production of eggs so the first process that stops is egg production. At this point you will think that introduction of water will automatically and immediately lead to the resumption of production, but no, the damage done one the reproductive system by dehydration takes a long time to be annulled. Imagine if a large flock should be dehydrated for 24 hours, production reduces drastically and if production of eggs is going to reach the max again it does after nothing less than two weeks, the cost of production remains the same but income reduces gravely which leads to a great loss for the farmer.

Solutions: As much as feeding is important, watering your animals is also very important so locate your farm very close to water source. For farmers using the automatic water system, always keep a close check on each nozzle to be sure the are not blocked. After water noticing deprivation, give water with anti-stress drugs or vitamins.

…Oyekunle Farms