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The objective of this study was to determine effects of room temperature and drinker design on growth and water disappearance of growing-finishing pigs (26.9 ± 3.67 to 130.9 ± 5.10 kg live body weight). A split-plot design was used with a 2 × 2 factorial arrangement of treatments: Room Temperature (RT) [Thermoneutral (TN) vs. High (HI); main plot], Drinker Design (DD; Nipple vs. Cup; sub-plot). A total of 316 pigs were used, housed in 32 pens in 4 rooms (8 pens/room; 7 pens of 10 pigs and 1 pen of 9 pigs). Two rooms were on each RT treatment. Room temperature for the TN treatment was constant throughout each day but decreased from 24°C at the start to 20°C and 18°C on d 14 and 45 of the study period, respectively. For the HI treatment, a single, cyclic RT protocol was used throughout the study (30°C from 08:00 to 19:00 h and 20°C from 20:00 to 07:00 h, with 1-h transition periods). Pens had fully-slatted concrete floors and 1 feeder and drinker (either nipple or cup); floor space was 0.67 m2/pig. Pigs had ad libitum access to standard corn-soybean diets, formulated to meet or exceed NRC (2012) nutrient requirements. Water disappearance was measured using a meter fitted to the water line supplying each drinker. There were no interactions (P  > 0.05) between RT and DD treatments. Drinker Design did not affect (P  > 0.05) growth performance; water disappearance was 7.3% greater (P  ≤ 0.05) for Nipple than Cup drinkers. Compared to the TN treatment, the HI treatment had no effect (P  > 0.05) on gain:feed ratio, but resulted in lower (P  ≤ 0.05) average daily gain (6.5%) and average daily feed intake (5.5%) and greater (P  ≤ 0.05) average daily water disappearance (16.8%). These results suggest that both drinker design and RT can affect water disappearance, and that the high, cyclic RT regime used reduced growth performance of growing-finishing pigs. Further research is needed to determine the contribution of water intake and wastage to treatment differences in water disappearance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study was conducted to evaluate the water disappearance of nursery pigs (from weaning to 6 wk post-weaning; 6.4 ± 1.07 to 22.0 ± 3.39 kg live body weight) using a randomized complete block design to compare two Drinker Type treatments: Nipple vs. Cup. A total of 336 pigs housed in 16 pens with 21 pigs per pen in 2 rooms (8 pens per room) were used. Pens had fully-slatted concrete floors; floor space was 0.32 m2/pig and there was one feeder and one drinker per pen. Pigs were fed corn-soybean–based diets formulated to meet or exceed nutrient requirements. Pigs and feeders were weighed at the start and end of the study. Water disappearance was measured using a water-flow meter fitted to the water pipeline supplying the drinker in each pen. For the overall study period, Drinker Type did not affect (P  > 0.05) growth performance; however, average daily water disappearance was greater (P  < 0.05) for Nipple than Cup drinkers (2.74 and 2.25 liters/d, respectively; SEM = 0.139). Water to feed disappearance ratio was greater (P  < 0.05) for the Nipple than the Cup treatment (5.23 vs. 4.22 liters:kg, respectively; SEM = 0.263). These results suggest that water disappearance from nipple drinkers was greater than for cup drinkers. The lack of an effect of Drinker Type treatment on pig growth performance suggests that the treatment difference for water disappearance was most likely due to greater water wastage for the nipple drinkers rather than any effect on water intake per se. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]