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Heat stress in dairy cattle

Welcome to the page about Heat stress in dairy cattle of Engormix; a source of knowledge on Heat stress in dairy cattle.
Monitoring and transmitting in real time and continuous manner the body temperature of the cows has become a reality these days. This can improve the effectiveness of cooling treatments given to the cows, with all the benefits that can arise from that. The following article presents the knowledge and experiences accumulated in the last years in Israel, based on monitoring cow's body temperatures, using intravaginal data loggers. In one of my first cooling projects, carried out on a...
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Heat stress (HS) is well known to negatively influence dairy cow’s wellbeing, health and productivity. Heat stress is a multi-billion-dollar global problem. It impairs cow’s performance during summer when cows are exposed to high ambient temperatures, direct and indirect solar radiations, and high humidity. While significant developments have been achieved over the last few decades to mitigate the negative impact of HS, such as physical modification of the environment to protect...
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Global warming and the constant increase in cow yields aggravate the summer problem on dairy farms and increase the production losses caused to dairy producers. An important part of the losses caused is due to the negative effect of heat load on the fertility of cows that are inseminated in summer. To characterize this effect, we collected data from five large-scale, high-yield dairy farms (1,500 to 3,000 dairy cows per herd) located in the "Laguna" region of northern Mexico, characterized...
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Global warming and the constant increase in cow’s milk yield exacerbate the summer problem in dairy farms and increase the production loss caused to milk producers. In order to quantify these losses, I collected data from five large scale high yielding dairy farms (1,500 to 3,000 cows per herd), located in the Torreon region, north Mexico, characterized by a desert climate, with close to 180 stressful days, where cows are exposed to heat stress conditions. Despite the desire to compare...
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Summer heat stress is currently one of the biggest causes of economic losses to the global dairy industry, especially in the hot regions of the world. The International Dairy Federation (IDF) decided to deal with the problem and established recently an expert's committee to examine the issue and recommend ways to deal with it at the global level. After being recommended by the Israeli Dairy Board to participate in this committee, I found myself serving in a central role in...
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Sergio Calsamiglia
Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona - UAB
INTRODUCTION The profitability of dairy farms is an increasing concern in many economies around the world (Ellis et al., 2020; Ojo et al., 2020). This is the result of continuous economic, political, social, and environmental factors affecting different countries and regions (O’Leary et al., 2018; Ramsbottom et al., 2021). Therefore, dairy farmers are continuously searching and updating strategies and technologies that can improve the dairy farm technical and economic...
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Dr. Geoffrey E. Dahl
University of Florida
Heat Stress and Late Gestation Cows - Real Science Exchange
We are back at the Real Science Exchange and invite you to pull up a chair and join us to discuss the effects of heat stress on late gestation cows. Dr. Geoff Dahl with the University of Florida and Dr. Jimena Laporta with the University of Wisconsin-Madison, join Scott Sorrell and Dr. Clay Zimmerman. ...
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An article dealing with this topic was recently published in the prestigious journal of the dairy industry, Journal of Dairy Science (Espinoza-Sandoval et. al., JDS 106: 2023). The article examines, using a statistical model, the feasibility of investing in cooling the cows in the summer in various countries around the Mediterranean Sea (Europe, North Africa and the Middle East), where there are different “climate zones” regarding dairy farming. The model presented in this...
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When talking about the negative impact of heat stress on milk production, we usually refer to the impact on milk volume (liters per cow per day or per lactation). The reality is that this is only part of the problem, which causes economic losses to farmers and dairy industry. As will be presented in this article, heat stress negatively affects milk fat and protein content and reduce milk quality, by increasing milk Somatic Cell Count (SCC) and bacterial count. In some cases, especially in...
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A lot of information has been published in the last decades, dealing with the negative effect of summer heat stress on the productive and reproductive traits of the high yielding cow. Very limited information existed however, up until the last years, on the effect of heat stress on the feed efficiency of cows (as estimated by the feed to milk ratio). Knowing the full extent of the economic losses caused to the cows due to heat load can help to present to the dairy farmers...
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Heat stress related production loss, compromised welfare and cattle mortality are global concerns, which are increasing in the context of climate change and increase productivity of the cows. Cattle response to heat stress varies, based on individuality and thermal environment. In this article I intend to describe heat stress monitoring, in individual and herd basis, making use of thermal indices, as well as physiological and behavioral changes occurring in the heat stressed cow. 1....
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Heat stress related production loss, compromised welfare and cattle mortality are global concerns which are increasing in the context of climate change and global warming. To maintain the welfare and performance of livestock, monitoring the effects of climatic extremes is important. Farming systems are becoming increasingly automated and remote/automated monitoring of animals is an ultimate need to overcome the limitations of human observation for continuous characterization of cows...
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In mid-June this year, I realized a professional visit to Spain, where I lectured at a national conference organized by one of the country’s most popular dairy newspaper, Vaca Pinta, followed by a week of lecturing and consultancy for large scale dairy farms with MSD, realized in different regions of Spain. Among the visited regions were Talavera, south of Madrid, Galicia, in the northwest of the country, in the Atlantic coast and then the regions close to the cities of Girona and...
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Israel is located in the eastern basin of the Mediterranean Sea and is characterized by a subtropical climate. Summer lasts from June to October and is characterized in most regions of the country by high temperatures and humidity at all hours of the day, but no rain at all. The Israeli dairy industry has about 120,000 cows that produce close to 1.5 billion liters per year. The annual milk yield per cow is the highest in the world and stood at more than 12,000 liters in 2021. The...
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Heat stress is one of the major loss factors in the dairy industry of many countries in the world, especially those located in warm regions. The loss caused to dairy farms raises from the decrease in cow’s annual milk production and in feeding efficiency, together with the impairment in cow’s health and fertility. The most common cooling treatment provided to the cows today, combines cycles of wetting and forced ventilation. This treatment have the potential to...
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This article is written at the end of July, the hottest part of the year here in Israel, when every return home from abroad is first accompanied by going to the fridge to drink a lot of cold water. I decided that this is the right time to write about the importance of water in the dairy farm, especially for those located in warm regions. The issue of water in the dairy farm is an essential element in achieving milk yield, production efficiency and high profitability, especially in the warm...
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An increase in the velocity of air, at a temperature lower than the surface temperature of the animal, has the potential to increase the sensible heat loss of the animal. An augmentation in air velocity will shift the upper critical temperature upwards. An effective ventilation system to reduce heat stress should emphasize the production of high air speed as much as the commonly accepted goal of reducing ambient temperature. Increasing the air velocity lowers the effective temperature...
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According to the Italian website CLALIT, in 2021 the Italian dairy sector accounted for almost 10% of the total EU milk production and 6% of EU milk exports. Italy exports nearly 35% of its milk production, mostly cheese, with high added value to the milk. Italian dairy herd consists of 1.6 million dairy cows, most of them in farms located in the Po valley region, in the north of the country. Milk production in 2021 reached 13.2 billion litres, when per cow annual milk production is 8,300...
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Heat stress is considered one of the main causes of performance and economic losses in the world dairy sector. These losses are proportional to the degree of heat stress cows are subjected to (days or hours per year, cows are exposed to THI above threshold), as well as to the level of production and some nutritional and managerial practices. Do we really know to quantify the total losses? The answer for the moment is no! The literature published until now deals with most of the...
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