Animals can be seperated into two groups as warm blooded and cold blooded according to their heats. Cold blooded animals’ heats adapt to the environment easily. Furthermore, warm blooded animals protect their heat according to the varying environmental conditions. For example, cows take place in this warm blooded animals category. They try to make their heats steady by stabilizing the heat that they get and spread with the heat that is produced by their metobilism.
Dairy cows continue their lives by some environmental factors. Various climate facilities can be mentioned such as open- air temperature, humidity, dryness, wind, storm, serenity, open- air, cloudy weather etc. Open- air temperature makes interactions with humidity, wind and rain and as a result of these meat efficiency, milk efficiency, fattening performance, fertility and such things are affected in this process.
It will be possible a dairy cow to perform well as long as the enviromental conditions are suitably provided. Suitable environmental conditions for the milk cow can be defined as 13- 18 degrees temperature, % relative humidity 60 to 70 and 5- 8 miles per hour of wind speed. The higher the rate of moisture in the air, the lowering of body temperature through perspiration, breathing or lower. Especially in case of high temperature and high humidity environment, the negative effect on dairy cattle is increased.
Feed consumption and milk efficiency decrease because of the heat stress. Generally, animals’ reactions to the heat stress can be defined as; increases in the number of respiratory, decrease heart rate and increased sweating.
It is generally known that; the milk cows which are in the heat stress, sweat intensely. Additionally, if it is thought that a large portion of milk is created by water, crucial importance of it can be evaluated better by the animals that are in heat stress. Because of this, clear water should always be given to the animals during the hot summer months and the drinkers should be set in which these animals will comfortably be able to reach. Meanwhile, it is going to be a better way to set these drinkers under arbors to prevent overheating of the water. 13-19 degrees is recommended as the ideal drinking water temperature.
With the aim of increasing the profitability of the business, arrangements should be done precisely. By this way, it is going to be possible to mention about less damage for the animals. There should also be some organizations about feeding in this process.
When the applied nutrition programs in cattle during the hot summer months are examined, a good rate of pregnancy or struggles about a seamless offspring efficiency, predictions about low rate Summer Acidosis Syndrome, continuity of milk efficiency and synthesis with less stress can be seen as targets. The common point here is; falling dry matter intake that causes from the high environmental temperature or the problems that occurs from the preventions to increase dry matter consumption. As the environmental temperature rises, dry matter consumption decreases and the efficiency of animals are seriously affected because of not being able to get necessary nutritions for themselves. When dairy cows are directly exposed to the sunshine and if there is non- breeze in the air, their heat stress increases. The decreasing situation of the quality of feeds especially in hot weathers also decreases the feed consumption of the animals. Because of this reason it should be careful while feeding animals, and the most suitable preferences should be chosen to feed. Additionally, there should be a balance between the forage and the mixed feed. Decreasing the rate of forage in ration and increasing the rate of mixed feed is one of the arrangements to increase the feed consumption and to eliminate the energy deficit. But the main reason for decreasing the feed consumption is the rise of body temperature while fermentation of the cellulose. The times for feeding can be taken forward; cooler times them to be fed comfortably. Water that has crucial importance for the animals should always be in a place which they can reach easily. Soudium, bicarbonate and buffer are important things to be able to minimize the increases in the mineral water amounts.
Fertility performance decreases in heat stress, hot weathers and such situations. A decrease is seen in the anger level of cows. Blood flow slows in the fertility periods because of the deficient energy intake and the high need for life sharing. Decreases are also seen in the fertility performance.
A temperature stress happens when the animals get away from the termonotral zone in which they have optimum efficiency levels. Because of this situation, high temperature stress is being mentioned for the temperatures above normal and high coldness stress is being mentioned for the temperatures under normal. Hypothermia can be observed for the animals whose temperatures are under normal. Deceleration begins in the metabolic and physiological activities. In such cases, nipples begin to suffer from the freeze. In the case of the progression of hypothermia, the respiratory rate, the heartbeat and the blood pressure decreases. The animal loses its’ consciousness and if it is can not be heated, this means that death is inevitable soon. Milk efficiency also decreases with the fall of feed intake for the animals that are early stages of lactation. ( % 5 grade and under )
Water supply is initially important for the cold weather conditions. If the animal is thirsty because of freeze or any other reason or if there is a mineral preparation for it as a free option, then it will be convenient to both consume water and get minerals after drinkers are unfastened or after the reaassurance of the water. In such situations, mineral poisoning can be seen. Animals loosen or have violent stomach pains or they reject feed consumption. As a result of these; death is inevitable again even the reassurance of the water.
Animals usually consume more feeds to release from hypotermia. The consumption of water decreases. Because there is a need for more energy to protect the normal body temperature. Need for energy in the cold weather conditions can be more than 25 to 30 degrees from the normal life share.
As a result of all of these that are mentioned above, optimal environmental conditions must be provided to get the highest efficiency from a dairy cow.
