Heat stress: This hot weather is tough on stock, particularly dairy cows. Cows get heat stress at temperatures greater than 24°C and with the mercury going above 30°C this week, there were a lot of cows under pressure.

Cows are classed as thermoneutral animals and like to be in temperatures of between -15°C and 25°C. At higher temperatures, humidity has a big part to play. Even lower temperatures with high humidity will cause heat stress. Humidity levels during the hot days this week were at 66%. According to a chart developed by NADIS in the UK, at that level of humidity, temperatures over 28°C will cause severe heat stress.

This can be observed by cows panting as this is the only method they have of controlling their temperature as similar to dogs, they can’t sweat.

There are two key elements to managing heat stress in grazing systems. The first is shade and the second is water. On hot days with little wind make sure cows have access to shade, such as high hedges or trees. Given that summers are going to be hotter, farmers should really be thinking about planting shelter belts to provide shade. Some US work shows that heat can be reduced by 20% where cows have shade.

Water is also critical with cows drinking up to 100 litres per cow per day during hot weather. If milking cows in the early afternoon, consider cooling the herd down with a sprinkler in the collecting yard.

Flies: Hot weather is high-risk time for flies and summer mastitis. Of course, with so many midges around the risk of bluetongue is also heightened. While many farmers vaccinated for bluetongue, don’t forget the vaccine only controls BTV3, not BTV8 which is prevalent on the continent.

While the Department is not encouraging farmers to treat animals for flies and lice as a preventative treatment for bluetongue, there are definitely benefits in terms of fly control. Flies make cows extremely irritable in the milking parlour and in extreme cases cows will group closely together in the fields to reduce fly pressure. All of this adds stress and is easily enough solved with fly control. In-calf heifers are another group of stock that benefit from fly control in order to help prevent mastitis.

Insurance: The summer months are often a good time to sort out administration tasks like insurance. With the huge increase in construction costs over the last five years, many farmers are still under-insured even if insured values have been occasionally increased. It could be well worth farmer’s time to get a full assessment done at the time of renewable. This is because if the farm is found to be under-insured, then any payout will be reduced by the amount that the farm is under-insured by. For example, a cubicle shed for 50 cows was built 10 years for €100,000 and has been insured at that level. However, to build the same shed today would probably cost €150,000 so it’s under-insured by 33%. If the roof blew off in a storm and cost €50,000 to reinstate, the payout would be reduced by 33% or €33,000 in payout even though the shed itself was insured for €100,000.