3 Helpful Tips for Preventing Heat Stress in Cattle

With the summer season comes intensive heat that can be just about unbearable for anybody to handle. This goes for your livestock as well, who may spend much of their time lounging and baking in the midday sun. This kind of heat can take a real toll on your cows, so here are three helpful tips for preventing heat stress in cattle.

Providing Water and Feed

When the temperatures start rising, expect your cattle to start drinking a lot more and eating a lot less. A single cow can consume up to 30 gallons of water per day, so you need to ensure they have a constant source of water. Alongside keeping their water troughs full, you should ensure that your cattle have frequent access to feed to entice them to maintain their regular diets. Strategically placing the feed somewhere cooler will keep the feed fresh and help herd your cattle to stay within cooler areas and out of the sun.

Providing Shelter

One of the most important and helpful tips for preventing heat stress in cattle is providing them with a place of shelter to get them out of the sun—especially if you don’t have much shade around your farm. Even if there is shade, cows gathering around it may cause mud holes that will eventually kill those trees. With portable livestock shelters, you’ll be able to safely and effectively shelter your cattle and keep them organized simultaneously.

Cooling Devices

There are a few devices you can invest in to help keep your cattle cool during the summer. If you keep your cattle inside a shelter, you’ll quickly realize the air can easily become very still and stale. Fans are a simple and elegant solution that creates an airflow throughout the barn. Another option, ideally for when the cattle are outdoors, is misters or sprinklers. Cows don’t have much ability to sweat as humans do to naturally cool themselves off, so a mister or sprinkler is a good substitute to keep them feeling cool. The only thing to keep in mind is that you don’t want the cows to soak for too long in order to avoid saturating their udders with water. An easy way to avoid this issue is by using timers to automatically turn sprinklers on and off at appropriate times.