With summer comes heat and humidity. A successful dairy farm requires a healthy environment for cattle to thrive in; in the summertime, that means special care needs to be taken to ensure that calves, heifers, cows, and farm workers are not experiencing heat stress.
Here you will find strategies to prevent heat stress and improve the welfare of your cattle and farm workers including:
Each summer, dairy farm producers and their employees work through days of extreme heat and humidity – often starting in May or June and continuing into September. While we certainly need to protect our dairy cattle during these hot days, it is also an important time to be conscious of how to protect ourselves and our dairy farm workers during summer heat.
Below is a visual representation of what to enter in the report screen to generate charts similar to what is shown in the companion factsheet: “Using Bovisync Reports to Assess Potential Impact of Heat Stress on a Dairy”. Milk Production Butterfat Percent Reproduction Milk Quality Clinical Mastitis and Transition Cow Health Download Article
Use ME 305 because it reflects seasonal changes. Milk fat varies depending on when the plant is testing—morning versus afternoon. Create a team to help you investigate seasonal depression in milk production. You can use your herd veterinarian, dairy and nutritional consultants, and herd manager. It is important to determine the economic impact of heat […]
Hot summer weather can be hard on feed ingredients and total mixed rations (TMRs). It is vital that feed quality and aerobic stability be maintained during this challenging season. Doing so will minimize nutrient losses while optimizing cow intakes which are often compromised due to heat stress challenges.
Dairy producers often struggle to quantify the impact of heat stress on their operations. The ability to use dairy management records to identify seasonal trends is critical to assess potential heat stress related losses. Diving into a dairy’s herd management software can help a producer quantify where the losses are occurring and, with some easy calculations, determine the profitability of investing in cow cooling measures.
Heat stress not only affects the productive ability of your cattle but also their ability to conceive and sustain a pregnancy. It is important to understand the effect heat stress can have on reproduction and how you can help minimize the effect.
Heat stress occurs when an environment impacts the ability of a cow to get rid of body heat. Cows need to be raised in an environment where temperatures are within their thermoneutral zones to achieve their maximal genetic potential. Failures to establish adequate environmental temperatures can dramatically alter behavior, health, and productivity of cows.
Hot weather can bring a long list of problems for dairy producers. When cows are heat stressed, they eat less, produce less milk, have reduced immune function and higher SCC, and show reduced fertility. A spike in lameness often follows the hot season. In severe heat waves, cows can even die. In addition to the economic burden, the discomfort from heat stress also reduces animal welfare.
When we talk about thermal stress in pre-weaned calves, often we discuss cold stress. However, calves can become environmentally stressed when temperatures are too cold or too hot. During extreme cold or hot temperatures, calves utilize extra energy to maintain their core body temperature. The temperature range at which a calf uses no additional energy […]
Managing heat stress in dry cows is just as important as it is for lactating cows because it determines the amount of productivity and success a cow will have during her lactation. It can also influence the future success of the daughters and granddaughters of the dry cow.
