Heat Stress in our Dairy Cows

Rosie cooling her heels

Summer time in the south!  It's hot.  Or as they say in Cajun French, "C'est chaud!"  It's hot for humans, but for cows?  Our poor Jersey cows are struggling mightily.  They just aren't built for this southern climate and don't deal with the heat well.  They get up early and slowly walk out to the pasture, battling mosquitoes, deer flies and horse flies.  They eat in the shade cast by the live oak trees against the rising sun in the east.  As the sun rises and the shade disappears, the cows slowly walk back and sit beneath the shade all day long until the process repeats but from the western side.

Here's the problem.  They are eating less and it puts them in stress.  Humans sweat and enjoy the evaporative cooling.  Jersey cows, on the other hand, do sweat, but much less than humans.  How do they handle the heat and cooling themselves?  Poorly.  They pant.  Their tongues hang out.  They drink lots of water.  Especially poor LuLu.  She's in milk since calving Betsy and that puts an additional load on her body.  We were splitting the milk with the calf by separating them allowing Betsy to get the milk all day and then after separating them in the evening, we milk first thing in the morning for us.  Well, we've stopped that temporarily until temperatures drop off.  It's been around 100 degrees for a number of days now.

We're doing a couple of things to assist LuLu.  First, in the early morning and late afternoon, we spray her down with a water hose.  She's taken a liking to this and eagerly walks to the spot by the hose in anticipation of the bath.  We're also making a drench with 1 cup of molasses, 1/3 cup of apple cider vinegar and 2 tablespoons epsom salt.  We mix this up and give her three 50cc drenches in a drench gun in the morning and the evening to give her an electrolyte boost.  Since she's not out eating as much due to the excessive heat, I'm picking sweet potato vines from the garden to supplement her minimal grass intake.  She loves sweet potato vines.  

I noticed Rosie (in the photo at the top of this blog post) standing in a puddle of water caused by the float valve not working properly because the water trough isn't level.  The water trickled over and caused a mud puddle before I caught it and shut the valve off.  Some say that cows will stand in the water to cool off their hooves and dissipate heat.  If that is beneficial short term, great!  It's generally not a good idea to have mud puddles as they are vectors for parasites and standing in water softens the hooves, making them susceptible to hoof rot and other foot ailments.  In this heat, however, that puddle will evaporate quickly and won't be a long term problem.

Tomorrow looks like we'll have a high of 97 degrees, but the days following look to have reduced temperatures down to a 'balmy' average of 94 degrees.  Not a huge drop but somewhat of a respite.  Hang in there, LuLu.  Cooler weather is coming.  In the meantime, we're doing everything we can to help her (and us) to cool off!

Update on LuLu and Nicky

We last reported about LuLu calving in the hottest, driest, most miserable time ever.  It put her in heat stress and possibly a touch of milk fever.  We have been doctoring on her for a week now.  I have been running the water sprinkler since we haven't had rain in a month.  I'm trying to keep a patch of grass alive for her to eat.  Here's old girl standing in the water sprinkler cooling off.  Reminds me of what we'd do when we were kids!

We have been feeding her a little sweet feed mixed with alfalfa and have been drenching her 3 times a day with molasses, apple cider vinegar and Epsom salt.  At first we were bottle feeding Nicky a little bit to supplement, but we've stopped that.  LuLu appears to be producing milk for him.  In fact, we milked out her back teats last night.  We don't want her to get mastitis.  We'll soon start milking once a day.  Nicky is looking spry and healthy now.

His umbilical cord has not fallen off yet.  We have been checking his little horn buds on his head.  I would assume in another week, we'll de-horn him.  He won't like that a bit!

LuLu is not out of the woods, but I wouldn't say she's in "ICU" like she was.  Here she is slowly eating sweet feed mixed with alfalfa.

And here she is eating some hay while keeping a close eye on her little bull calf.  Although a first time mother, she has the motherly instincts.

If we would just get some rain and some cooler temperatures, I think things would get better.  We see no respite in sight.  Next week temperatures one day are showing 104.  Yikes!

LuLu's in Stress

LuLu calved in what might be the worst possible time.  It's hot as Death Valley and there is a high pressure sitting over us that has not allowed it to rain in a long time.  The heat index daily hits "feels like 107."  There appears to be no end in sight.  The pasture, which is normally green looks like this:

The heat, drought, and calf delivery has put LuLu in heat stress.  Although we have administered CMPK gel (Calcium, Phosphorus, Magnesium, and Potassium) we don't think it is full on Milk Fever.  However, her appetite is not good and she completely stopped eating hay for a few days.  We're concerned about her.

We have been mixing sweet feed with alfalfa pellets to feed her.  She SLOWLY eats it.  We watch to ensure she's drinking water.  She has begun, once again, to eat hay, albeit slowly.

It is important to keep her rumen working and help her to get things balanced.  We've been mixing up molasses, apple cider vinegar and epsom salt drenches and then, three times a day, holding her head up and getting that mixture down her throat.

To take a little strain off of her, we've been supplementing LuLu's colostrum for little Nicky with bottles of Jersey cow milk we are buying from a neighbor.  Tricia and I mix up bottles twice a day to give him.  Nicky would rather nurse from his mother, but he's getting enough down where he's hydrated.  We see him peeing and also see him jumping around with energy.  That's evidence that he's getting what he needs.

Each day we're picking sweet potato vines from the garden and feeding LuLu.  It's her favorite thing.  When she won't eat anything else, she'll eat this.

LuLu sits in the shade mostly all day and gets out to graze on the pasture at night when it is a cool 80-something degrees.  She's making limited progress, but Tricia and I have settled in for a long road of nursing her back to health and we'll do what it takes.  If we could just get a break from the heat and if it would only rain, we could experience healing in our animals and land.  At night we've resorted to running a water sprinkler in the pasture where we have LuLu isolated so that at least some green Bermuda grass will grow.  We're doing everything we can and hope and pray we'll be able to save her.