Water here in New Zealand has been a commodity seldom questioned, as far as supply is concerned, and defiantly seldom was its quality questioned when I was a boy. I recall coming across a sign up the east coast up from Opotiki, where the thirsty traveler was warned not to drink the water. I was aghast, how could this be in god’s own? On questioning a health guru in Opotiki I was informed that it carried large amounts of minerals. Not bugs, just minerals! Now almost all waters are contaminated with nitrates, Campylobacter, Gastroenteritis, Giardia, Rotavirus, or Salmonella, yet the authorities have their proverbial heads in the sand and are doing absolutely zilch to stop the rot. It seems that they are conned into the belief that it will just go away. How do you get the message through? I for sure don’t know, I have been pushing the proverbial uphill with a rake for forty years now and am old and grumpy.

While we are concerned when we have too much water, we are equally concerned when there is not enough. Water is closely linked with all internal reactions in the body, it is necessary for the transportation of food minerals and their waste products from body tissues. The efficient transportation of oxygen to tissues and the removal of carbon dioxide from the tissue from the lungs by the blood stream depend on a rapid flow of blood and on the maintenance of an adequate volume of blood, of which about 80% is water.

The ability of the soil to retain moisture is susceptible to changes in its water-retaining and water –transmitting properties as a result of the activities of man. Therefore, the difference between the soil and the underlying rocks-rather than their similarities-are important in assessing the relationship between soil water and water supplied to plants. Below the depth that can be reached by plant roots, the water dominated by molecular forces cannot be of any major economic importance, as it is not readily yielded to wells or springs where it can be put to use by mankind. Thus there will be low amounts of water into wells dug into clay or other fine textured material.

Factors which affect root penetration also affect water movement. Thus, if the profile is layered, water movement is limited as water moves through the soil by the influence of adhesive and cohesive forces; “Adhesive forces” refers to the attraction of water to solid mineral surfaces, and “Cohesive forces” refers to the attraction of water molecules to each other.

ANIMAL REQUIREMENT

Animals starved of water will lose nearly all their fat and about one half the protein content of their body to survive, however, the loss of more than one tenth of the water from their body results in death.

Water is by far the most abundant ingredient in the animal body and in every part of its development. For example, the developing embryo may contain 90 percent water, and the body of a new bourn calf contains 75 to 80 percent water. When access to water is limited the blood becomes more concentrated resulting in a reduced circulation and a reduced oxygen carrying capacity. Waste products will accumulate and all vital activities will be suspended resulting in death.

It is not the volume of water available to animals that will dictate the amount able to be consumed, but rather the temperature and purity of the supply. The push today of supplying drugs and minerals to animals via their water has led to the animal being forced to ingest its water in the form of a soup; not a good idea! When an animal is thirsty the last thing it wants is some liquid contaminated with minerals. It supply should be as pure as the driven snow.

Water contaminated with fecal matter, dirt of dead vegetable matter is an environment custom made for the production of nitrates. Nitrates, when ingested by a ruminating animal quickly convert to nitrites. Nitrites are ten times more deadly than their precursor nitrates. They are unstable and quickly convert to their more stable nitrate form. It is in this conversion that the animal succumbs. The conversion robs the blood of oxygen and the animal dies from anoxia in the process.