Cleaner water and higher claw health thanks to Watter system

Like many farmers, Barry van Bezooyen is a successor and has taken over his parents' farm completely in 2022. The farm in Lexmond has 110 dairy cows with about 50 young stock. For a long time, the cows had unexplained health problems, which naturally caused associated frustrations for the dairy farmer. Until one system brought a solution.

Cow health problems

His cows' resistance and health were poor before Barry started using the Watter system. Fertility was not good enough, milk production was lagging and claw health problems were common. To find the cause of these problems, he started investigating possible factors. After trying several alternatives, there was still no visible improvement. Little changed in the situation, forcing Barry to look further. After reading an article on drinking water quality from Watter, he decided to get in touch. "The representative from Watter obviously had a very nice story, but in retrospect it turns out: he didn't lie a word! The first advice was to take water samples."

Water results Mts. Bezooyen

Significant improvement in the water within a few weeks

Among other things, there appeared to be too much E. Coli in the water, upon which Barry decided to test the Watter system for six months. "Despite my daughter doing a good job of cleaning the water bowls about twice a week, there was always slime left behind. With the Watter system, the contamination disappeared completely within a few weeks." That slime was the biofilm that accumulated in the water bowls. With use of the Watter system, this was a thing of the past in no time. "Moreover, the water smelt pleasant again and the cows seemed to want to drink from it immediately. They dove into the water with their noses, previously preferring to look for the ditch," says Van Bezooyen.

A healthy cow has healthy claws

Not only did Barry notice the improvement in water, but there was also a big improvement in the cows' claw health. Mortellaro was a problem that was common on the farm before, that has almost completely disappeared since using the Watter system. "Meanwhile, there has also been no intermediate claw infection for quite some time. We noticed that claw health was the first thing that improved significantly. When the cow is healthy, it has healthy claws. And that in turn ultimately results in less hassle".

Disappeared problems are invaluable

Barry indicated that the payback period of the system is about 2-3 years. Although buying the system did take some investment, he stressed that the frustrations and problems with claw health were very annoying. "It is invaluable that these problems are now a thing of the past." According to Barry, this makes the purchase of the system well worthwhile. "Water is 80% of your ration, there should definitely be more to worry about. So first check that your water is really clean, that's important." concludes Barry.