High Iron in water

[Minnie]

Has anyone experience with the effects of high iron in drinking water on cattle and the colour of them?

We've moved onto our new property and the cattle look terrible, so there's issues with mineral deficiencies as well Fairy Floss a black calf has 'really' changed colour to a red/brown and the last calf about 6 weeks old now looks to be changing as well.

[Rebecca]

We have water with high iron content, on 2 properties. The bore water at our home property we aerate then filter through lime sand which reduces the iron content significantly. White material still goes off white fairly quickly though. The other property is purely commercial and we don't filter the water, but it does self aerater when pumped into the tank so a good proportion of the iron settles into the bottom of the tank, same with the water troughs.

Has never worried the cows. Our problems is more with selenium but we use feed blocks as needed, particularly dry feed blocks over summer, and find that we don't need to give supplementary injections, although we do with the sheep. Our girls are all glossy (black, red and dun), healthy and highly fertile so I wouldn't have said the high iron made a difference in our case.



Edited By Rebecca on 1292381199

[Broomcroft]

From a dairy cattle site:

Iron

"A high concentration (>0.3 ppm) of iron in drinking water is common. Human information suggests a high concentration of iron in water may reduce palatability and therefore consumption of water. Excess intakes of iron have been found to affect health through increasing reactive oxygen species (oxidative stress) which damage cell membranes and interrupt several biochemical reactions in the body. Oxidative stress in dairy cows has been related to increased incidences of mastitis, retained fetal membranes, and a general decrease in immune function. The aesthetic problem with iron is in the presence of iron-loving bacteria; reddish to black stains and slime form, reducing water intake, staining porcelain, and eventually restricting water flow through pipes.

The chemical form of iron in water is an important determinant of the bioavailability of iron and how oxidative reactive it may be. Most of the iron in water is soluble and found as ferrous (Fe++). However, the solubility and form of iron will change with pH and sulfate content of the water. At a pH of less than 7, more of the iron is in a less soluble ferric form (Fe+++) combined with OH, Fe(OH)3. As pH increases above 9.5, more iron is found in the ferric form combined with OH, Fe(OH)3. When sulfate levels in water increase above 200 ppm, iron increasingly complexes with sulfate to form FeSO4 rather than Fe (OH)3, and the palatability of water is likely to be reduced even more."

[Minnie]

Thank you both for your responses. Yes from what we'd read it was okay for cattle water but then two fellows at the Service Station said they had calves turn red when on high iron water... I think with the licks in place and rain water at the moment and as soon as I can I'll take the calves and raise them, would rather them on their mothers but not to kill either of them.

That will probably make the biggest impact to their condition.

[Rebecca]

Hi Minnie

I think it depends very much on the water and soil make up on a particular property. We drink the water from both properties. Our home/filtered water is beautiful, clear and no taste. The other property can occassionally taste a little "muddy" over summer when the water table has dropped. But as mentioned, on both properties the iron tends to drop out of solution when exposed to air. From reading what Clive has written it is obviously going to depend on the water itself and what else is in it other than the iron.

We have test both properties' soil and water and apart from the higher iron content and low selenium it is well balanced. But we are in WA so our soil will be much different to yours! You may find that there is a deficiency of other minerals that is as much to blame or perhaps a high sulphate level as mentioned in the article from Clive. If you are feeling the need to shift calves from mums early and you are planning on living there for a longer time then knowing exactly what you are REALLY dealing with is probably the most important thing. The assumption that it is the iron in the water that is the problem maybe totally wrong. And if it is the only issue then a cheap filtration set up could be more economical than hand feeding and rearing calves of their mums.

[Minnie]

I thought it well worth writing the outcome we had for this problem for others that may be in the same situation.

We ended up getting a copper lick (plus a couple of others) with the advice from a vet and we decided to change to rain water for the cattle, and the calf started to turn back black and get some beans about her.

In discussion with the LHPA (gov dept) vet on a pasture course he said, if cattle are deficient in copper and drink water high in iron it takes the copper out of them, therefore making them 'very' copper deficient.

Our previous property was 'very' high in copper to the point we would never have given the cattle copper in anything, but the new property was extremely copper deficient and having never seen copper deficiency we were missing what was happening. And the calf didn't just get a bit of red tinge and 'glasses' she was red.

Here was a photo of her that I showed the vet:


And here she is with Fatima (she was born the day before Fatima) where you can see the difference in colour.



Fatima was still having milk from the dairy near where we lived, and was drinking rain water, so showed no signs.

I'm sure if we didn't act when we did with the water, Fairy Floss would have died.

I don't have a current photo, must take one. But now she's lively, black and getting a winter coat.

Vicki

[Mima]

I know that copper deficiency has the same effect on horses, their coats go lighter and 'sun bleached' and a copper shot/supplement sorts it out.

[Duncan MacIntyre]

The lightening of coat colour in copper deficient cattle tends to be most pronounced around the eyes, giving a spectacled appearance. In the absence of laboratory confirmation that the light coloured calf was really copper deficient, I would suggest that it is typical of some Dexter calves carrying either red or dun but really black because black is dominant - they have the "aura" of the carried colour when very young, and in extreme cases may end up registered wronly for colour, but as they mature the black takes over. Look at the nose and hooves in these calves, they are invariably black.

Duncan