The Importance of Water in the Management of Cattle

Abstract

Owing to the constant concern with the metabolic needs of animals for protein, energy, minerals and vitamins, and the attempt to keep up to date with the voluminous and growing literature dealing with these problems, there IS an excuse for many workers, in the well watered temperate areas of the world, omitting to emphasize the fundamental importance of water in animal nutrition. On movement from these areas to the semi-arid regions, where long droughts alternate with seasonal and often short rainy periods, and where livestock experience serious difficulties in finding and consuming sufficient herbage to maintain growth, reproduction and normal sustenance the seasonal water shortages exert such dominating influences that attention is quickly and importantly focused on livestock requirements.