Most guides on water quality contain standards that address both aesthetics and health issues (National Research Council,1974). The former have been developed with the preferences of humans in mind, and really do not address the needs of livestock. If aesthetics influences pig consumption of water, this has never been documented scientifically. However, an aesthetic problem might also be an indicator of something more fundamentally wrong with the water that could have health implications. For example, if turbidity or odor is high, the cause could be something of concern to pork producers. It is important, however, to understand that some so-called water quality criteria have little, if any, relevance to the pig; the challenge is to differentiate those that are important from those that are not.