Anyone ever have an animal suffer from heat stress?

[inbredredneck]

So it's your contention that Wisconsin has the same conditions in the summer as the south does?
Just for clarification purposes of course

Just stating the obvious Wisconsin gets hotter than Florida.

 

[Anonymous]

Temp and humidity?
Why is it then that you lost how many head to heat? If its the norm you should have seen it coming. Being normal and all.

 

[Anonymous]

Maybe I Should send you some eared cows. Help cope with the heat and all

 

[Mod2]

Let's move on!

 

[denvermartinfarms]

Maybe I Should send you some eared cows. Help cope with the heat and all

That's what i was thinking. but if you need to get rid of some eared cows i get along with them just fine.

 

[TennesseeTuxedo]

Let's move on!

Hear hear!!!

 

[chippie]

I hope that your bull recovers. I would imagine that a bovine could suffer brain damage from overheating like any other mammal.

A friend had a dog overheat and it suffered brain damage. It did not recover well enough to keep alive. It was kinder to euthanize it. : (

 

[backhoeboogie]

A few years back thousands of cattle died in Nevada and other states from heat stess. It was discussed in this forum.

We see temps above 110 degrees here just about every summer. It is not so much the high temp during the day that gets cows in trouble but rather when the over night lows are in the mid to upper 80 degree range and cows are trying to forage at night.

Feed has impact on cattle in high temperatures, based on my experiences - including panting. That has been argued in this forum a few times but I only know what I have seen. When temps get extremely high my nurse cows go to an all grain 9 % dairy feed.

 

[chippie]

This is a good article about heat stress in beef cattle. http://vetmed.iastate.edu/vdpam/extension/beef/current-events/heat-stress-beef-cattle

A quick quote:

Compared to other animals cattle cannot dissipate their heat load very effectively. Cattle do not sweat effectively and rely on respiration to cool themselves. A compounding factor on top of climatic conditions is the fermentation process within the rumen generates additional heat that cattle need to dissipate. Since cattle do not dissipate heat effectively they accumulate a heat load during the day and dissipate heat at night when it is cooler. During extreme weather conditions with insufficient environmental cooling at night cattle will accumulate heat that they cannot disperse. Therefore, a temperature-humidity index (THI) alone may not predict cattle heat stress because it does not account for accumulated heat load. Another short fall of THI is that it does not account for solar radiation and wind speed which can affect heat load of cattle.

Cattle do not sweat like a horse or people. If it is hot, the critter is breathing hard, and you see a very wet nose and what appears to be drooling means that the cow/steer/or bull is very hot and is trying to cool itself. The larger/heavier the animal - the harder it is for it to cool it's core.

 

[Fire Sweep Ranch]

Thanks for the info! I think it was a build up, since the days got rapidly warmer (and nights), raised humidity, and him not used to it.
He is doing MUCH better, and even tonight was out grazing with the cows and came up for grain. Only rolled his pasterns a time or two, so I think his brain is reconnecting or the problem is slowly dissipating. Next weekend we have a 2 year old cow due to come into heat, and she is in the same pasture, so I will watch closely to see if he shows interest or tries to breed. That will tell me a lot. He has already settled two cows (prior to his heat incident), so he knew what he was doing before hand.

 

[NorfolkCattleCo]

Glad to hear the bull seems to be making a steady recovery! This thread has been full of great info so thanks for sharing the story regardless of your pride! I sure hope we dont have another summer like this one past because several areas were struggling with heat stress on there cattle.