It was a very warm day today, we saw the temperature peak at 92 degrees! If anyone has been paying attention to the milk shipped you would have noticed that within the past couple of days the amount has been decreasing. This is because cows can get heat stress just like people, and when they are hot they will produce less milk. Generally anything in the 70 range and above can cause additional stress on a cow so to combat this we have giant fans installed in the barns. Design of the barn is also important, as nearly all of our barns have an open hole running the middle length of the roof which allows for the hot, dense air to rise and escape rapidly instead of getting trapped inside. You can see this architectural design in the photograph below. That barn houses four different milking groups that are divided based on the amount of milk they are making. To help our cows relax during this warm day we had out veterinarian come in to breed early in the morning to avoid working the girls in the heat of the summer sun.
Todays milk will be announced soon and we had another set of twins, a baby heifer calf, and a baby bull calf! This is going to be a busy month for calves as our computer system is estimating around 70 for the entire month.
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