Keeping cows cool

Now that the weather is warming up, it is a good time to think about the immediate actions that can be taken to minimise heat stress in the herd.

There are severe consequences for heatstressed cows - decreased milk production, reduced feed intake, potential loss of body condition, mastitis, potential to not conceive or to abort, and many other animal health related symptoms.

There are short and long-term risk management practices that can be implemented to reduce the impact of hot weather.

The Cool Cows program developed by Dairy Australia offers a suite of resources, guiding you to areas of your farm that can benefit from some simple immediate actions.

If you know the day is going to be high risk for heat stress, you can plan to change your daily routine, getting cows milked and fed before 10am in the morning and delaying afternoon milking time to after 5pm.

This can make a big difference to cows coping with heat.

Think about how far you are asking the cows to walk in the

hottest part of the day (about 3pm) and on extreme days, avoid walking the cows to the dairy until after 4pm. You may consider changing your paddock rotation, keeping cows on a sacrifice paddock or cool stand-off area.

Sprinklers provide a huge benefit to cows.