Stress, Stress and Heat Stress?

With all the stresses of dairy farming...milk price, feed price, illnesses, breeding, cleaning, labor, and inspections. There are many more, but I am certain you get my point. Now, there is heat stress.


You see, happy cows are comfortable, well fed cows. Happy cows are the ones that make milk (it's true and not just a commercial). So what is my problem? The heat index has been over 100 for the last two days. Since we raise Holsteins, most of my cows are black and white. The more black they have the hotter they are.


The problem is I can't afford an air conditioned barn, keeping the cows in just makes them hotter as they emit large amounts of heat, keeping them outside gives them the opportunity to catch a breeze and some shade. A breeze would be nice for them right? Well it would be, IF, they didn't bunch up like this...





There were 3 groups like this all on the concrete, giving each other a ton of heat, foaming at the mouth and panting like dogs.



This is a huge problem because as they are foaming and drooling they are becoming dehydrated. Milk is primarily water and if they become dehydrated it depletes the amount of milk they produce. We keep our water tanks full with "floats". As the cows drink the water the float refills the tank until the tank is full and then quits until the water is depleted below the float line again.


Most of our cows have been "shown" at some point in their life so they know all about water and getting washed. A couple of years ago when we had some sweltering weather, I decided to put a sprinkler on the wood part of the fence. Of course I attached it with twine...that and duct tape keep the farm running you know. :) After a few days the cows decided to pull the sprinkler from the wall and that was the end of that.


This year I decided that I would try to find a tripod system like the commercial landscapers use. Fleet Farm just happened to have 3 kinds to choose from. My fence is 5 feet high so I decided on the tripod that extends to 6 feet and "mists" up to 1900 feet. Here is a picture of my new "cow sprinkling" system.

The one thing I miss using this system as opposed to the cheap up and over sprinkler is that I can not stop the water from going 360 degrees. I would love to set it at 180 degrees and keep the water just going into the cow yard.


While my cows seem to enjoy the shower, my horses do not appreciate such things. Most of the time they don't even care for the fan I have in their shelter. The nice thing about my horses is that they do enjoy going to the wash rack, having a nice bath and munching on my lawn while they dry. It also helps that I only have 6 horses; not like trying to hose off an entire herd of cows.


I hope all of you have a GREAT summer and find creative ways to keep our creature friends cool and happy!