Name: Water test strips
Cost: around $18
Intended use
The intended use of the water strips is to test for
- Free chlorine
- Total hardness
- Total alkalinity
- pH
- Total bromine
How to use the water strips?
Dip the strip into the water sample for 10 seconds. Then, hold it still in the air for about 10 seconds without shaking off the excess water. Match up the colors of the strip for water attributes to the back of the bottle to get your readings.
Important tests for poultry drinking water
Free Chlorine: Free Chlorine measures the amount of chlorine available to sanitize water. Try to maintain Free Chlorine between 2 to 5 ppm. When chlorine is added to water, some of the chlorine reacts first with inorganic and organic materials and metals in the water and is not available for disinfection; only free Chlorine will be available for disinfection.
Total Hardness: Total Hardness measures the amount of calcium, magnesium, carbonate, chloride, sulfates, and nitrates. Carbonate-related hardness is called temporary hardness, which can be removed by boiling or lime softening. Non-carbonate hardness includes the presence of chloride, sulfates, and nitrate in the water, which is called permanent hardness; this hardness is to be removed by ion exchange resin or water softener tanks.
Mohammad was the PIP team Research Associate (2021-2024) with extensive experience in poultry nutrition. He wrote science articles for newsletters and worked on developing adaptations and recommendations to support the adoption of new managerial tools, products, services, and practices by the poultry industry.
Looking at his poultry industry perspective, Mohammad has been serving the poultry industry through his extensive experience in feed formulation as an animal nutritionist over the past ten years. He was also a university lecturer for 10 years. Mohammad was a member of the Animal Care and Use Committee (ACUC) at the U of A. Mohammad graduated with a Ph.D. degree in Animal Science from the University of Alberta with a Postdoctoral fellowship before moving to his Research Associate position with the PIP team. Serving the poultry industry as an animal nutritionist for more than a decade, Mohammad loves teaching and worked as a university lecturer in Iran and a teaching assistant at the U of A. Mohammad was inspired by Dr. Frank Robinson, practicing the inquiry-based learning method when working as a TA in his “Principles of Animal Agriculture” class. “I have a strong passion on poultry nutrition and have always loved to help poultry producers with optimizing the poultry systems. The challenging part of working with live animals is that you need to be on call even as a nutritionist. However, the joy of seeing healthy animals and help with their welfare overcome the challenging part.”
