Dairy cows are vulnerable to heat stress. As temperatures rise, so does a cow’s body temperature and respiratory rate as she pants to cool down. 

Just buying fans and hanging them haphazardly around your barn is not going to be very helpful in your fight against the rising summer temperatures. There are a few key concepts that you need to consider to get it right.

Biological systems are amazing. One can’t even begin to comprehend the number of signaling pathways and exchanges required for life to exist, and what is more profound is so many of those systems are involuntary.

The impact of heat stress is cumulative. One event may be easy for a cow to bounce back from, but over time, repeated bouts take longer recovery and hinder profitability. Nutrition is a valuable tool to help mitigate the effects of heat stress and maintain herd productivity.

A cow’s core body temperature can rise very quickly in the holding pen without a cooling strategy in place. Therefore, the cooling strategy for the parlor and holding pen must be more aggressive to compensate for these heat abatement challenges. 

When it comes to heat abatement, most dairy farmers are likely to focus on their lactating cows. At the 2023 Pennsylvania Dairy Summit, Dr. Geoffrey Dahl from the University of Florida shared why this may not actually be the best method.