Biofilm on the farm can occur in many places. Not only does it lurk in the pipes of your drinking water system, but also, for example, in the hoses of your milking robot. This causes slimy tanks, clogged drinking nipples and clogged pipes. It also makes for smelly and potentially contaminated water. This is obviously not pleasant for farmers and it can also cause health problems for your animals.

The risks of biofilm

The slimy layer that forms around the bacteria makes biofilm very hard to remove. Not only does it cause blockages, a nasty smell and slime. But it can also cause other problems: Low resistance, fertility and claw problems were all factors dairy farmer Barry van Bezooyen encountered on his farm. A water sample showed that the aerobic bacterial count and coliform count were way too high, due to biofilm in the tanks and pipes.

What is tricky about biofilm is that the microorganisms adhere to each other with multiple layers of proteins. Which makes the biofilm extremely resilient. Removal is very importantmto avoid the above risks, and thus maintain healthy and happy animals.

Clean water with Watter

It is important for the health of your animals to give them clean water. Watter has developed a solution for biofilm removal. The Watter system is a device that produces an environmentally friendly disinfectant based on electricity, salt and water. The electrolysis of the salt and water produces a disinfectant whose active ingredient is HOCl.

There are several advantages with the Watter disinfectant over traditional chemicals:

• Due to automatic dosing, there are no dosing errors
• Because you produce the agent yourself, there is always fresh and sufficient disinfectant in stock.
• Watter disinfectant completely removes biofilm, thanks to constant low dosing and prevents it from growing back.
• The product is effective against several viruses, fungi, yeasts and bacteria.
• No more plastic jerry cans and storage of chemicals as the product is made on site and dosed directly from the system.

More on Biofilm:

• Pigs always have clean water - 12 Feb 2020
• The best drinking water for your chickens - 28 Sep 2023