Drinking-water supplements for poultry and pigs: the quickest route to put in place

Every animal in the house drinks. It drinks before it eats, it keeps drinking when it eats less, and it drinks more than it eats, by weight, all the more so when it is hot. The water line is therefore the only system on the farm that reaches the whole flock, on the day you decide, with equipment already installed and already paid for.

It is also a route you can stop. A formula change commits the whole delivery; a supply through the water runs for the days you choose, in the house you choose. Hence the rule: everyday nutrition goes in the feed, corrections and particular moments go in the water.

These products are complementary feeds and premixes for drinking water: what the market calls poultry water additives, liquid supplements for poultry, or simply a water supplement for chickens. For a contract grower who does not choose the feed, drinking water additives are often the only nutritional lever in their own hands.

The ration covers average needs. Some moments go beyond them: fast growth in broilers, the start of lay and the laying peak, transport, a heatwave. The animal then eats less just when it needs more, and water remains the open route.

Linkaphos supplies phosphorus and calcium in a set ratio, because an excess of calcium on its own can tie up phosphorus and make it less available: the ratio matters, not just the amount. Linkastim supplies vitamins, amino acids and electrolytes over a few days, when intake drops: timing matters more than quantity. Linkamax HD gives the laying hen vitamin D in the form the liver normally produces, together with the calcium of the shell.

The levels of vitamins and trace elements allowed in drinking water are not the same everywhere: we check the intended use for your country before any recommendation.

Under heat, animals eat less and drink more. Birds pant to shed heat and lose water; pigs cut their feed intake. Heat stress is managed first through the house: ventilation, stocking density, cool water available at all times, feeding times.

The drinking water then becomes the route that stays open. Linkastim supplies vitamins, amino acids and electrolytes over the days that count. Linkaresp supplies plant flavouring substances, led by eucalyptus, in a form that stays dispersed in the water line: respiratory comfort when the heat rises. Start it the day before a forecast heat episode. That is the heat stress in poultry and pigs programme, before, during and after the heatwave.

In summer, heat weighs on pigs too: Linkaresp and Linkastim are used through the water, as in poultry. On the feed side, the summer formula is a conversation with your formulator: water and feed levers are built together, not against each other.

A health problem in a flock nearly always has several causes, and the first answer is not a product: it is the veterinarian’s diagnosis, husbandry and the building. Linker products are additives and supplements for feed and drinking water, used within a farm’s programme. What the water can carry are nutrients and substances that go with the periods when the animal is under most pressure.

Breathing. Coughing and sneezing come first from the house environment (dust, ammonia, wet litter, ventilation) and from the veterinarian, who alone identifies a disease. The Linkaresp page sets out what belongs to the building, what belongs to the veterinarian, and what the water can bring.

Fat metabolism. To export its fat, the liver needs phosphatidylcholine: choline and methyl donors feed its synthesis. That is the nutritional logic of Linkatol, given through the water for a few days at feed transitions and at the start of lay; its page sets out what belongs to the ration, to husbandry and to the veterinarian.

Digestion. Through the water, Linkamune combines an inactivated yeast rich in cell walls (mannans and beta-glucans) with acids that bring down the pH of the water; Linkacid Prime L acidifies the water continuously. On the feed side, the gut health levers are those of the Digestion and performance category.

A farm programme is not picked from a product list: it is laid over your calendar, house by house.

• We look at the water and the house first. A water analysis, and how the lines are managed between flocks, often change the recommendation more than the choice of product does.
• We map the range onto your calendar. What runs at placement, at peak of lay, in hot weather, for how many days, and what it must not run alongside.
• We adjust with you. You tell us what you see in the house; timing, duration and sequence are refined by coming back to them.
• We tell you when a product is not the answer. If the right lever is a management or water-handling change, that is what you will be told.

A liquid product is only worth what the system delivers. At the feed mill, Linker Flow supplies the product and the spraying equipment; on the farm, it is the dosing pump and the water line. It is the same trade: an injection point, a real dose, a measurement.

Our drinking-water products mostly reach farms through a distributor or an integrator: tell us your country and we will put you in touch.