The Moos Room™

00;00;11;03 - 00;00;20;09
Brad
And welcome to The Moos Room. It's Brad and Emily again. This is like two weeks in a row or something, isn't it?

00;00;20;12 - 00;00;21;24
Emily
In the summer, nonetheless.

00;00;21;29 - 00;00;33;17
Brad
I know the summer is is going to get difficult. Emily and I actually have plans to record in person together for the first time in probably years.

00;00;33;17 - 00;00;34;13
Emily
Year?

00;00;34;15 - 00;00;53;22
Brad
At least a year? Yeah, at least a year. I think the last time we recorded was somewhere about July, this time last year in person in Saint Paul. And we're going to actually do it again. So yes, it's because we have all these extension events running all over the state talking about calf care. And so I'm going to be where Emily is.

00;00;53;22 - 00;01;03;28
Brad
And we are going to yeah. See each other for the first time. And since the state. Fair enough probably. Yeah. Who knows. I don't fly so fast.

00;01;03;28 - 00;01;20;00
Emily
That many months. Yes. So yeah. So it'll be good. So we will be, recording together in Rochester next week. So, yes, our next episode will be us in the same room. So we'll see what that dynamic is like in a while.

00;01;20;02 - 00;01;41;21
Brad
It's actually it's it's been different. And it's going to get crazy here. Right. So county fairs are going on like mad here. Emily spent it a few county fairs with her, nephews and and people showing. And my kids are getting ready for the county fair. Are animals trained like they should be? Absolutely not.

00;01;41;23 - 00;01;42;14
Emily
Of course not.

00;01;42;15 - 00;01;59;03
Brad
There. They never are. And, But somehow they managed to parade around the show ring and and do fine. So. And the state fair. Can you believe the state fair is less than a month away in Minnesota here?

00;01;59;05 - 00;02;23;23
Emily
Yeah. Less than crazy. It's crazy. We we were just talking about. Yeah, like getting our tickets and, Yes, my nephew earned a state fair trip, with his foods projects. So I was at the meeting last night for Dodge County for H. So shout out to the Dodge County team. They do a great job there. And yeah, so like talking about State Fair, getting his for a State Fair button.

00;02;23;23 - 00;02;45;00
Emily
It's it's his first year. And for H and first year going to the State Fair. So it's all very exciting and nostalgic for me. As his aunt of course. But yeah, it just blows my mind that like, oh my gosh, we are this close. Like, I'm already holding State Fair tickets in my hands. And of course, the new foods list came out and all that exciting stuff.

00;02;45;00 - 00;03;00;17
Emily
And so it it is it is happening, right? It is almost August and I don't think we mentioned Farm Fest yet. We'll both be at Farm Fest, of course. So much happening always, especially in the summer. Goodness gracious.

00;03;00;20 - 00;03;17;09
Brad
We don't know if the streak will stay where Brad and Emily will record every week. I know there's a few times where we might do some solo episodes just because we're at the county fairs or state fairs, but alas, we will continue on. We will continue on.

00;03;17;12 - 00;03;36;08
Emily
I think that Brad should record an episode at the county fair, with his daughter, who of course has been a guest on the show previously and, really enjoyed it. So, Brad, there's an episode idea for you. Brad. And on a live from the county.

00;03;36;08 - 00;03;40;12
Brad
Fair, we could we could do a live one while we're in the milking parlor. Milking cows?

00;03;40;15 - 00;03;41;27
Emily
Yeah, in our.

00;03;42;00 - 00;03;49;05
Brad
Wonderful milking parlor. Emily knows how wonderful it is, I reminded her this morning. But, so beautiful.

00;03;49;05 - 00;03;51;24
Emily
Wrap of the exit parlor.

00;03;51;26 - 00;03;52;25
Brad
Yeah, at the county.

00;03;52;25 - 00;03;55;03
Emily
Fairgrounds for a county fair, if you ask.

00;03;55;05 - 00;04;15;15
Brad
Yes, it's a a pitted parlor with three stalls, rapid exit. It is wonderful. And we've had it for seven years now, I think, and it's just great. But you will never find that anywhere. Probably in the county fair in the United States. So we're very lucky out here.

00;04;15;18 - 00;04;50;25
Emily
Yeah, it it is beautiful. And it is definitely a great, educational piece for the public, I think, to, to see, a scaled down version of, of what many farms have or are working with or are moving towards. So it is cool. But yeah. So, so we have a lot of stuff coming up. You know, but but like Brad talked about, he is going to be, down in the Rochester area next week for a field day and part of part of, you know, what they're talking about here pulls into our discussion today.

00;04;50;28 - 00;05;14;18
Emily
So that field day, you know, the field days this year are all really focused on calf care I believe. So we're going to start with calves today but also talk about adult cattle as well. And that specific topic is heat stress. Right. Especially this time of year a very hot topic, as it were. I have been waiting to make that.

00;05;14;20 - 00;05;15;17
Brad
I know I.

00;05;15;20 - 00;05;27;05
Emily
I've minutes. We've started recording this episode so so anyways, yes. Now that I've derailed us with that joke right.

00;05;27;08 - 00;05;50;03
Brad
But it's been very hot this week and last week in at least in the upper Midwest and other places around the US, it's just been really hot temperatures in the 90s degrees Fahrenheit. I think even this weekend, maybe some 90s Fahrenheit here in Minnesota and on the East Coast and down south, it's just been a heat wave all over.

00;05;50;03 - 00;05;52;10
Emily
So and high dew points.

00;05;52;10 - 00;05;53;15
Brad
And high dew points, right.

00;05;53;15 - 00;06;03;12
Emily
Sticking with it. Yeah. Sticky air feeling very heavy. Yes. It's it. Yeah. It's been hot. It's been miserable.

00;06;03;14 - 00;06;23;23
Brad
So I think we wanted to talk a little bit about heat stress in calves, in cows, maybe how to some things that you can look at when you're talking about heat stress and of course me, I have sensors that measure heat stress. So we can think about some of the sensor stuff and maybe how we use heat stress.

00;06;23;23 - 00;06;47;16
Brad
And then hopefully you'll learn some things about how to reduce, heat stress. Maybe in cows or calves. I think when you think about heat stress, I think one of the things that we don't really think about often is heat stress in our calves. And that is probably the one thing that we maybe need to pay more attention to.

00;06;47;16 - 00;07;06;01
Brad
I think all of us think that they're, you know, they're doing fine. They're kind of forgotten about. We feed them in the morning, in the evenings, and we think about, oh, well, they're in they're in a calf. Ouch. So they're going to be fine. They're not having direct sun beating down on them, so they must be fine. Right.

00;07;06;03 - 00;07;35;05
Brad
Well I don't think that that is the issue. Actually, calves in hutches can be, quite stressed when it gets hot and humid out. I think when you think about calves, when the temperature really gets above 78°F. So actually not very hot, at least from our standpoint. Calves can be heat stress. They have respiration increases. They can be dehydrated.

00;07;35;08 - 00;07;54;26
Brad
So and when a calf gets hot it doesn't like to eat. It doesn't like to drink. So obviously it's going to get dehydrated. And that in turn leads to other things that, you know, calf health problems. They could get scours and a host of other issues that might happen when the calves are heat stressed.

00;07;54;28 - 00;08;14;26
Emily
So in my experience, you know, the dehydration, especially with calves and hutches can happen really easily because they may not have, you know, free choice water access to water all the time. Right? The way our, our lactating cow is, you know, we make sure they always have access to water and I think most people with calves, even in hutches.

00;08;14;26 - 00;08;25;25
Emily
Right. Like we try to stay on top of making sure they have water. But if you're filling a bucket, if it's really hot, I imagine when you get there to fill that bucket, it's already empty, right?

00;08;25;27 - 00;08;30;24
Brad
And I think calves don't really like to drink warm water when they're younger.

00;08;30;26 - 00;08;35;14
Emily
I don't if you like to drink warm water, especially when it's hot already.

00;08;35;14 - 00;09;00;03
Brad
Yeah, exactly. So when, when the the sun is beating down upon that water, I don't think the calves are really interested in trying to go up and drink water to help relieve their heat stress. So. So if you think about calves, let's talk about calves again. And so calves will drink a lot when it's hot. And so drink a lot of milk.

00;09;00;03 - 00;09;23;18
Brad
And because they tend to burn more energy when they're at high temperatures. So the hotter it gets the more energy that the calf is burning obviously. Why? Because they're trying to cool themselves. So you have to think about that. That maybe you want to increase the level of nutrition that you're fed, feeding to these calves during heat stress.

00;09;23;21 - 00;09;47;16
Brad
Because they're going to burn more of that energy. So they're going to use more of that energy for maintenance and cooling off than what they're putting to growth. So when it's really hot, most of us are like, oh, well, yeah, I don't really like to eat or drink when it's really hot out, but the calf might need more nutrition because it's such a hot environment and they're going to burn more of that energy.

00;09;47;16 - 00;10;17;08
Brad
So maybe think about increasing a little bit of milk or feed to that calf during a heat stress period. Now of course yes, they might not drink it or they might not eat it, but I think feeding the calves in an optimum time during the day. So earlier in the morning, maybe you could go to three times a day if you wanted to, you could feed them in the morning, feed them in the afternoon and then feed them in the evening when it's cool out.

00;10;17;15 - 00;10;40;22
Brad
And it might be a little bit better off for that calf. So I think there's lots of options that you have to adjust during times of heat stress for these calves. One other thing is when it gets hot, you calves might get sick and they might have health issues. Because what happens when it gets warm out? Well, bacteria grow.

00;10;40;24 - 00;11;08;19
Brad
You might have increased scours and calves. One of the salmonella. You get lots of algae, you get lots of mold. We've all seen the the algae or mold in the calf water buckets or anything like that when they're young. So increased bacteria can cause health issues in calves as the temperature goes up. So we probably want to do more cleaning and sanitizing of our equipment that we're feeding those calves.

00;11;08;21 - 00;11;33;18
Brad
We might have to wash the buckets out a little more often. When it gets hot, clean our pails, bottles, you name it, I think, and we've talked about that a lot on this podcast, is all about cleaning. I think the number one thing that all of these health issues go back to is if you have proper cleaning, you probably won't see many issues in calves.

00;11;33;20 - 00;11;37;07
Emily
One word comes to mind biofilm.

00;11;37;09 - 00;11;39;02
Brad
Yes, definitely.

00;11;39;04 - 00;12;01;06
Emily
And yes, I as Brad mentioned, I was recently at the fair. And of course, if you listen to our biosecurity and going to shows episode, you know, I talked about using only your equipment, you know, not sharing water buckets. And, you know, of course, I was out there with my niece and nephew and my sister in law, if you did not know, is a veterinarian.

00;12;01;09 - 00;12;21;00
Emily
So yes, we were walking the calves out to the wash rack and somebody had their water pail there for their cattle, and the calves tried to walk towards and and get a drink. And of course, my sister in law was very quick to go, that's not yours. And I said, yeah, biofilm. That's so And she agreed with me.

00;12;21;00 - 00;12;44;18
Emily
Right. So yes, that that cleanliness piece is, is so, so important. Right. Even when you're at your own farm. Right. We're not even talking about sharing water buckets or being with animals from other farms just at your own place, keeping those things clean. And because, yes, those little bacteria love to grow and they can grow very quickly.

00;12;44;20 - 00;13;13;09
Brad
Probably. What is the true tell sign of calves under heat stress? Well, obviously they're not going to drink potentially but it's they're dehydrated. I think those of us for humans that's probably one sign of heat stress is dehydration. You know what I think about a few weeks ago when I was in Key West, I just, I think I told before I wanted to go to Key West and stand at the southernmost tip, but it was 105 degrees there.

00;13;13;09 - 00;13;37;14
Brad
And humid. And I think I drank like six bottles of water while I was there. So did that mean I was dehydrated? Probably. I was just sweating it all off and I'm probably more dehydrated than what I should be. So that is one of the true tell signs of a calf dehydration. It can be tough. You know, they can't necessarily communicate to you that they're dehydrated.

00;13;37;14 - 00;14;02;22
Brad
So you have to probably increase feeding or make sure that they have fresh water there all the time. And like I said, not hot water. You know, you might have to dump the water out a couple times a day, but if you provide water for them to drink even after their milk and have fresh water, clean fresh water there all the time, they're not going to be dehydrated.

00;14;02;24 - 00;14;04;28
Emily
We talked about electrolytes.

00;14;05;05 - 00;14;30;11
Brad
Electrolytes may help, but obviously water is probably better. Obviously, if the calf is severely dehydrated, electrolytes are going to help them and get back to hydration, but it certainly shouldn't be a replacement for anything. By the time you get to feeding electrolytes, it's probably dehydrated. And I shouldn't say too late, but things are not going the way that they should be.

00;14;30;11 - 00;14;57;00
Brad
So providing clean, fresh water is is a must. We are lucky here at our research center where we have calves and group housing, and we have the waters, automatic waters that are in our pens. So we don't have to, you know, make sure we're feeding buckets. Obviously group housing is a little bit easier on that regard. So there you know the cabs have clean fresh water all the time I should say.

00;14;57;05 - 00;15;20;29
Brad
Is it clean every time now it there's always a challenge that we have to go out and clean those Richey waters all the time. Because when it gets hot, what do we get? Emily? Biofilms and litter, right. Biofilms and algae on our water. So we have to make sure that that's clean. But hydration is important definitely important. And and feed intake.

00;15;20;29 - 00;15;51;28
Brad
So you also want to provide, fresh grain all the time to those calves because starter intake is probably going to drop when the calves are hot. And that can reduce average daily gain. But it's a challenge to maintain calf starter intake when it's heat stressed. But at least you can have it there all the time. Obviously, you don't want to just keep piling on the feed because that is a breeding ground for flies.

00;15;52;00 - 00;16;18;24
Brad
So there's there is there's a lot of challenges with this. When you have heat stress, you know, you're trying to maintain intakes, but the calves won't eat. But now the feed is breeding flies, so it's just a a mess everywhere I get it, I get it. So, make sure you have clean, dry feed and you have ample feed there for the calf so they can continue to eat and you're going to see reduced intake.

00;16;18;24 - 00;16;23;19
Brad
There's probably it's probably a given when it gets really hot.

00;16;23;21 - 00;16;55;08
Emily
Right. So you kind of already mentioned it Bradley you know in the feed. But what else about flies. You know of course I know you do a lot of work related to flies being, you know, in in organic and pasture based dairy, you know, and I have to imagine that flies stress probably increases heat stress. So is there anything related to fly control, to think about as, as it also ties into heat stress?

00;16;55;10 - 00;17;17;23
Brad
Oh, yes. There's lots of things that you can do with calves. You can feed different supplements that have fly control additives in them, or lard resides in them. So you can put that in the calf feed to help reduce fly presence. You can also, yeah, use some some sprays or something on the calves to help alleviate the fly problem.

00;17;17;26 - 00;17;44;27
Brad
I sometimes look at the calves that are being bit by flies, and I think they're worse off than the cows sometimes because it's just miserable. They're in a, individual or a super hutch. They can't get away. They can't run around like a cow can. And so they're just constantly being bit by flies. The worst flies that you see for the calves are probably stable flies because they're in bedding, whether it's sawdust or straw.

00;17;44;27 - 00;18;04;01
Brad
So lots of stable flies, they're biting the legs of the calves and it can be quite miserable. So that can cause problems too. So trying to reduce fly loads during heat stress is important as well. And I think you'll be better off with the calves. So what about the cows? We talk about.

00;18;04;03 - 00;18;05;06
Emily
Cows. Bradley.

00;18;05;06 - 00;18;38;02
Brad
Yeah, what about the cows? We it's a lot of the same things. You're going to see heat stress in cows, maybe a little bit less even 72 degrees or 70°F. Sometimes cows can experience heat stress at 65 degrees with. We've done some studies here in Morris with our cows on pasture, and they're starting to experience heat stress around 65°F, which is kind of crazy.

00;18;38;02 - 00;18;56;03
Brad
Most of us think 65 is wonderful, but a cow starts to experience heat stress at 65, especially if they're outdoors, don't have access to shade, and it can be humid. So it's important to think about it as well.

00;18;56;05 - 00;19;20;06
Emily
Right. And I always remember especially cows versus cows. Right. Cows are really using their rooms to their full ruminating capacity at this point. And you know, like I've always said, and especially when I teach like, younger kids about cows, I say like that room and just acts like a giant feeder for the cow. So that is why at 65 degrees, they're probably starting to feel warm.

00;19;20;06 - 00;19;40;09
Emily
Because, again, like rumination, that process generates heat all the time. So so yeah, that that is why, you know, cows maybe get heat stressed a little quicker than we would think they would. But and we know their body temperatures run warmer than humans. All of that.

00;19;40;12 - 00;20;02;28
Brad
It's a big fermentation vet. So there what do you see. Obviously some of the the telltale signs some of you probably know this obviously feed intake is going to go down, when cows are hot on dairy cows, milk production is going to go down. And beef cattle probably not produce as much milk for the calves. They're going to have reduced feed intake.

00;20;03;00 - 00;20;25;13
Brad
Respiration rates are going to increase. So if you go out and watch cows, whether it's calves or cows in heat stress, you're going to see their respiration rate increase. So they're going to be panting. Some might actually be holding their tongue out. And if a cow is panting and holding her tongue out she is very heat stressed, very heat stress.

00;20;25;13 - 00;20;46;03
Brad
So that's one true sign of heat stress is the cows are breathing really heavy. Obviously we see, like I said, milk production go down. That's one of the true tale signs. And in a dairy world it's easy to see milk production go down. Sometimes in big heat stress events, you can see losses of 7 to 8 pounds of milk.

00;20;46;05 - 00;21;21;15
Brad
And that's a lot. That's a lot. But even in mild heat stress, you can see a couple pounds decrease in production for cows. So there's lots of things very similar outward appearance that you can see for for cows. So how do we reduce heat stress in cows. Well if we're on pasture we should have shade right? Whether you're a dairy cow, dairy heifer, beef, cow shade is probably one of the first recommendations that you would have.

00;21;21;17 - 00;21;42;01
Brad
And I, I get it, shade is expensive. And, we wrestle with that here at our research center. You know, we have this fancy solar shade thing that, people might have heard about or seen about, but not everybody's going to have one of those. There's other portable shade things that you can use, but they can be expensive.

00;21;42;01 - 00;21;43;01
Brad
And how do you move them?

00;21;43;01 - 00;21;55;20
Emily
So and of course, I love trees, but I think of, you know, your pastures. Oh by Morris Bradley. When I picture those pastures in my mind's eye, I am not picturing very many trees.

00;21;55;22 - 00;21;57;03
Brad
No, there are some trees.

00;21;57;03 - 00;21;58;06
Emily
A lot of them, I think. Not a.

00;21;58;06 - 00;21;58;20
Brad
Lot.

00;21;58;22 - 00;22;01;00
Emily
Of your pastures have some.

00;22;01;00 - 00;22;29;15
Brad
Maybe some have trees, but not all of them. So yes, shading from trees can help alleviate heat stress. And that's one way to do it. Let them in the trees. So. But yeah, if you don't have trees. If you're in a barn, obviously ventilation, you know, make sure your ventilation is working well. You're getting proper air exchanges, which is between 60 and 90 air exchanges per hour.

00;22;29;17 - 00;22;46;19
Brad
So that's a lot a lot of fans. Make sure your fans are size correctly. I've gone you know, we have an older barn here. And we were like, oh well, we could put calves in here. And it's like, no, we're not going to put calves in here because we don't have enough fans. To alleviate the heat stress in this barn.

00;22;46;19 - 00;23;04;20
Brad
We need to put bigger fans and more fan. So just because a barn has fans doesn't mean that it's a good way to relieve heat stress. So you have to make sure, you have good air speed.

00;23;04;22 - 00;23;13;12
Emily
So I want to talk about my favorite thing that is paired with fans. And that is cows sprinklers.

00;23;13;13 - 00;23;16;03
Brad
Oh yes.

00;23;16;06 - 00;23;19;10
Emily
I've just always gotten a kick out of those.

00;23;19;13 - 00;23;23;20
Brad
So what about cow sprinklers? Do you like? Should we use them?

00;23;23;22 - 00;23;47;22
Emily
I mean, I think, yes, I, I am a big believer in evaporative cooling. Right. So the whole concept of you get something wet in this case with the sprinklers, you're trying to soak the cow down to its skin, you know, along kind of its neck, top of its back area. And then yes, you have fans paired with that, and then those fans blowing air across that water, it will evaporate it.

00;23;47;22 - 00;24;08;10
Emily
And that helps cool you. Right. You know, my favorite human example? Think of when you get out of a pool and if there's a slight breeze, you feel really cold. All of a sudden that's evaporative cooling in action. So yes, that's something that I think especially in, you know, our larger Thai style barns, that's where we see the most of the time.

00;24;08;12 - 00;24;31;04
Emily
I think they're really effective if they're done properly. Right. I think some people think more about like, oh, sprinklers. And we're just misting the top of them. And the key with evaporative cooling is really getting, that water in a large enough droplet size that it will soak down to the animal's skin, not just, sit on top of its hair.

00;24;31;05 - 00;24;45;06
Emily
Right. But but it's something I've always, again, just kind of gotten a kick out of. I think it's really smart. You know, and, and I just like the science of evaporative cooling. I guess.

00;24;45;09 - 00;25;12;06
Brad
Yes, I agree, and it works. Well, you see this in a lot of Western Dairies especially, you know, in California, Idaho, many things like that. However, it's not perfect. I saw it in our Saint Paul dairy. Barton. So the University of Minnesota, we have another dairy herd, about 100 cows in Saint Paul. And they were doing some holding area cooling.

00;25;12;06 - 00;25;32;12
Brad
So it's a Thai style barn. The cows come to a milking parlor, and it's adequately ventilated. I'm not sure that it's the greatest ventilated barn in the world, but it works. But they do some holding area cooling, so I watched it one day. So they have these sprinklers and soakers in the holding area, to help cows reduce their heat stress.

00;25;32;14 - 00;25;48;26
Brad
And it worked well. And I thought, oh, this is a good idea. Maybe I should try this at at our heard. The problem is, is I watched it more and more. It was difficult to get the cows into the milking parlor because they were so probably under heat stress that all they wanted to do was stand underneath the soakers.

00;25;48;26 - 00;25;54;04
Brad
And so nobody wanted to go in the milking parlor. The cows just stood there under the soakers.

00;25;54;08 - 00;25;56;21
Emily
Worked too well. It was well, I it.

00;25;56;21 - 00;26;13;26
Brad
Worked too well. It was actually relieving the heat stress of the cows. And they didn't want to go back. Well, they didn't want to get milked and they didn't want to go back to the stall. So, you know, I've thought about hooking something like that up here at our research center just in the, in the holding area to do some cooling.

00;26;13;29 - 00;26;34;05
Brad
I think I would see the same issues cows are going to be, standing in the holding area and using cooling. The other question is, how bad do my milkers want to get wet, right. Because if they're going to go out into the holding area and get cows, or obviously you would have a crowd gate to bring them in.

00;26;34;05 - 00;26;42;02
Brad
Yes, we we all know the benefits of crowd gates, but sometimes crowd gates break and they're very expensive.

00;26;42;02 - 00;26;43;03
Emily
It's it's not perfect.

00;26;43;08 - 00;27;12;11
Brad
Life is not perfect. Yes. We do not have a crowd gate. It does not work anymore. We've it's been a challenge. And so yes. Anyways, another side note, but yes holding area, cooling misters, all of that is wonderful. The last thing is drinking water. We have a, 100 gallon tank in our holding area and other places so cows can get lots of cool water at certain times of the day.

00;27;12;11 - 00;27;41;22
Brad
So providing adequate water, like I said, with the calves, hydration is important for cows to regulate their body temperature, especially during heat stress. So you want to provide drinking water at all times. And like I said again it should be cool or cool water, not water that's been beating down from the sun at 100 degrees. Because sometimes I'll go out in the pasture and they'll just the water tank is just hot, and I dump it out and make it refill with cool water.

00;27;41;22 - 00;27;48;20
Brad
So it's it can be a challenge, but just providing enough water is a benefit.

00;27;48;23 - 00;27;57;28
Emily
Do you have problems with cows, like putting their front hose into the water tank in an attempt to cool down?

00;27;58;01 - 00;28;17;17
Brad
Yes, we see it all the time. There's always cows standing in the water and I've we've tried to put bigger waters and that still doesn't alleviate the issue. And so yes, we do see that quite often that cows will stand in the water.

00;28;17;19 - 00;28;29;11
Emily
And of course, as a reminder, if you notice that you should then clean out that water tank because hooves are gross and covered in manure. And now that's in their water.

00;28;29;13 - 00;28;32;06
Brad
And now they have biofilms and biofilms.

00;28;32;06 - 00;28;37;11
Emily
Yeah, exactly.

00;28;37;13 - 00;28;57;08
Brad
So one thing that I use, and of course, everybody knows that we like sensors, I like sensors. And so we have a sensor system and maybe we'll talk about it more in depth. I have an idea to have some farmers on that have this system and how they use it for heat stress, but we have it. It's called smacks tech.

00;28;57;08 - 00;29;29;11
Brad
It's heat stress. Well, it's a rumen bolus that goes in the reticulum or rumen of a cow, and it can measure actual body temperature of, of animals. And we can look at ways of, of alleviating heat stress, things like that. So I do watch it. Actually pretty much in the last, well, since, about five days ago, it's been pretty hot here in the Midwest, and it shows moderate heat stress.

00;29;29;11 - 00;29;56;04
Brad
I have a climate sensor on. So actually two days ago it was very severe heat stress. The why? So we talk about why it was 84 degrees. So that combines temperature and humidity. And so it was 84. You know most cows are showing heat stress at 71 is kind of the benchmark. So this was really heat stress yesterday.

00;29;56;04 - 00;30;26;25
Brad
The fire was at 82.5. So cows were really heat stressed again. So it's it's been a wild ride. And you know I've looked at some of these cows and rumination is decreased during severe heat stress time period. So I'm seeing that. So you can look at these sensors and see the rumination go down. This one is also unique because I can see drinking behavior of these cows.

00;30;26;29 - 00;30;51;22
Brad
So I know exactly when they drink how much water intake they have. So you can really look at it. If I look at a particular cow, I notice that she's drank 7 or 8 times during the day and it's a little bit less heat stress. She doesn't drink as much during the day. It looks like she was really drinking a lot this morning actually.

00;30;51;22 - 00;31;21;06
Brad
So at about 6:00 this morning, she drank a lot of water this morning, so maybe she was trying to gear up for a little heat stress today. But it is interesting that I can see, water intake of these cows and how the water intake increases or decreases across time. So you can really look at times of heat stress and really try to manage heat stress with this.

00;31;21;06 - 00;31;47;18
Brad
And I've thought about ways that I can increase waters number of waters in a, in a pasture or a pan, or how to alleviate heat stress. So it is kind of interesting to see what happens. Let's see what is what was. Well, tell me the body temperature of a cow. When when she's under heat stress. So three days ago, she had it was pretty high heat stress here in Minnesota.

00;31;47;20 - 00;32;10;22
Brad
The body temperature of this cow. So this is internal. Said it was 105 degrees. Oh, and it told me her. And because she had spiked in that heat, this is about 6:00 at night. So during a hot, really humid time of the day, it says her normal body temperature, internal is 102.6. So she had went up three degrees Fahrenheit.

00;32;10;25 - 00;32;43;15
Brad
So definitely some mass of heat stress times there. And she cools down in the evening. You know, it goes back to normal 102 or 103 in the middle of the middle of the night. But that particular day she was really hot and heat stressed. And so we see that in lots of different animals that are heat, stress. So I think there's lots of tools out there that can help look at, cows that are heat stressed and, it's interesting to see what happens.

00;32;43;15 - 00;32;47;23
Brad
But we'll talk more about that one other day. We can get some farmers on.

00;32;47;25 - 00;33;09;04
Emily
Yeah. It would be cool to see how times of heat stress impact, you know, cattle behavior, like specifically with dairy cows, you know, they've done some research on like their daily time budgets. But like you're talking about that cow that's up to get water eight times. Right. So how does heat stress impact to cows time budget. You know, how does it change it.

00;33;09;04 - 00;33;26;05
Emily
Because she's spending more time getting water. But maybe she's spending less time eating feed. So that that's the thing I would like to, to see is how how that stacks up against the quote, average or typical dairy cow time budget.

00;33;26;08 - 00;33;54;11
Brad
Yeah, it'll be interesting. We're we're trying to do we're doing more work with heat stress. I'm going to be doing some heat stress stuff in the next couple of years with students and some of these, sensors. So I think that is the plan to look at behavior and welfare a little bit more in animals that are heat stressed and actually see what's going on, because I think it's, heat stress is a big topic and it's still a hot, hot topic.

00;33;54;13 - 00;34;03;01
Brad
Hey, that that we all talk about and how to alleviate heat stress. So, they'll be more in the future. Most definitely.

00;34;03;03 - 00;34;03;28
Emily
Yeah.

00;34;04;00 - 00;34;06;11
Brad
Awesome.

00;34;06;14 - 00;34;13;03
Emily
Well, are there any final thoughts from you, Bradley? This seems like a good spot to wrap up this conversation.

00;34;13;05 - 00;34;17;26
Brad
No, I think we have. You talked a lot about heat stress today and calves and cows and sensors.

00;34;17;26 - 00;34;46;02
Emily
So yeah, I mean I think we all know the the main conclusions are keep your animals cool, fresh, cool, clean water. Available hopefully at all times or as much as possible, you know, with the calves, I would say that's number one is is the water piece. And then, when you can proper ventilation. Right. Especially for, for cows and in barns or if they're out on pasture, give them sheep.

00;34;46;04 - 00;35;08;11
Emily
But yeah, if you want to learn more about heat, stress or other cattle topics, you can visit our website extension dot UMD edu. If you have questions, comments, or scathing rebuttals about today's episode, you can email those to the movers room at In that meeting, you. And with that, we will wrap up there and we will catch you all next week.

00;35;08;13 - 00;35;09;26
Emily
Bye.

00;35;09;28 - 00;35;15;09
Brad
Hi, I'm.

00;35;15;11 - 00;35;19;19
Emily
All right. We did it. I was good.