Gimbo Dairy Farm

01 Feb. 2021

How to reduce heat stress in Holstein Friesian in the Canada?

Pure Holstein Friesian cows are considered the best dairy cow in the world so here in Canada, its demand is very high. As Canada ranks as the fourth-highest milk producing nation in the world that’s why dairy business is very common in Canada but we lack in management skills related to dairy business and our farmers or dairyman are unaware of cow’s health and issues. As Holstein Friesian is a sensitive cow. She needs a good environment and weather, but that does not mean that we cannot take care of this breed here in Canada. Our farmers just need to do little effort to make a good environment in less investment.

Insights

All cow’s health, milk production, feed intake gets effected during hot weather. Feed intake usually declines in summers which eventually reduce energy which in return is needed by a cow to produce good quality milk. There are many easy and affordable ways to make your cow happy in hot weather. You must need to focus on:

1- Protecting Cows from Direct Sunlight

How to reduce Heat Stress in Holstein Friesian?Shades protecting cows from sunlight By providing adequate shades to your cows make them happy as direct sunlight add heat load to the cow. Also, overcrowding under the shades creates suffocation which increases stress on the animal.

2- Fans and Sprinklers.

The biggest mistake that farmers or farm managers do is to sprinkle water through fans into free stalls. Which creates cow’s health issues like the most common mastitis, feed spoilage. Sprinkling water is very good for cows. But in a desired limited area so that other areas must not suffer where water is not wanted.