Keeping Your Cattle Cool

Keeping Your Cattle Cool

With higher temperatures in much of the region, here are some reminders about how to keep your livestock as cool as possible. University of Idaho Extension Beef Cattle Specialist Dr. Benton Glaze says

Glaze: "One of the things that we can do for our livestock, is think about the heat as we do for ourselves. Usually when it is hot, we like to limit our activity, make sure we have water to drink and also we like to find shade from time to time. We want to make sure that our animals have access to good, cool, clean water throughout the day and these hot times. We also want to make sure that we limit their activity. So if we have animals that need to be moved from pasture to pasture or to another place — we want to do that early in the morning or in the afternoon."

Dr. Glaze continues with what signs to look for with heat stress.

Glaze: "Some of the initial signs, we can watch how they are breathing if they are panting maybe with their mouthes open that they might be initially in the some stages of heat stress — for sure if they go off feed, or maybe if they are bunching up or not getting airflow we need to be concerned with that as well."

He adds that if the pasture doesn't have good air flow or natural shade to consider moving the herd where there might be more wind or creating some shade.

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