Managing in the heat

The key to keeping cows cool is to provide enough shade and enhance a cow's natural ability to unload heat through evaporation. If you can do these two things, you will increase feed intake, and improve milk production and reproductive performance.

Start by looking at your farm as a whole. Remember, where possible, provide shade first, then consider using evaporative cooling techniques.

Which paddocks are the coolest, with the most opportunities for shade? Here is a process for rating your paddocks based on heat load:

1. Divide your farm into individual paddocks or sets of paddocks.
2. Give each paddock pr set of paddocks a 'Cool score' from 1 to 10 based on the amount of shade it provides cows in the middle of the day and other characteristics (1 score = least cool, 10 score = most cool). Remember that the aim is for 4m² of shade per cow at midday.
3. Now give each paddocl or set of paddocls a score out of 5 based on the walking distance from the dairy (Score 5 if <1km, score 3 if 1 - 2km, score 1 if > 2km).
4. Tally up the scores and rank the paddocks from coolest (highest score) to hottest (lowest score).

If you have a farm map, or better still a farm mapping tool such as Efarmer, use it.