The hot weather has continued through the week with the weekend being one of the hottest so far this year. All regions were in moderate heat stress through-out the week and some bordered on High heat stress over the weekend. There were some very warm nights over the weekend which limits the ability of the cow to shed heat prior to the next day. Predicted milk yield losses averaged around 1.0 – 1.7 l/cow/day over the week and will have risen over the weekend.
The long-running heat stress will have impacted the cow’s physiology as well as production and they will have built up a considerable heat load over the past week. Now that the weather has eased slightly and we are forecast a few cooler days it is important to maintain any mitigation actions whilst they cool down. This also applies on a daily basis – don’t turn fans off as soon as the temperature falls in the evening but keep them running to help the cows shed their heat load.
