Beef cows stay outside all year, and they get hot in summer weather. Farmers and ranchers give beef cattle everything they need to stay cool in hot weather.
Are Your Cows Hot in the Summer?
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On days like today, I can really see the benefit of so-called “confinement” barns for farm animals.
It’s 95 degrees outside, with a heat index of 105. There is barely any breeze. It’s so humid that the sky is hazy and the air feels thick to breathe. The lens on my camera fogged up when I went outside to take these pictures today.
And our cows are outside in this heat.
Days like these, the animals who live inside have it pretty good. Our inside cats certainly aren’t too warm. (Yeah. It’s 95 degrees outside, and she’s cuddling in a down comforter.)
Our dog Sadie lives outside all year-round. (Except that one time when we woke up in the middle of the night to find her in our bedroom. But that’s another story.) She’s part Husky, and this time of year is pretty hard on her. We do what we can for her, like give her this big fan to lay in front of and all the ice water she can drink.
I would brush the rest of her winter coat off her, but she’ll try to bite my face off if I do. So I let her shed in her own sweet time. Poor dog.
Even the barn cats are trying to find some shade under the trailers. Usually they spend their days lounging on top of all the big hay bales, about 24 feet up in the rafters of the barn. Way too hot up there today.
Why Are Beef Cows Kept Outside?
We raise beef cows, and they spend their lives outside. Most of the time, it’s a pretty cushy lifestyle. Plenty of green grass, water on demand, and lots of hay to supplement them when the pasture isn’t enough and through the winter. The calves even get to play on cow mountain. They get fed cracked corn every other day through the summer and every day in the colder weather. But days like these are rough on them.
Cows can’t sweat like people do, so it’s important for farmers to give them ways to cool off. For our girls, that means plenty of shade for them to relax in. They have a three-sided shed and some shade trees where they can go to try to stay cool.
I often think it would be nice for our ladies to be able to get inside a temperature-controlled barn to cool off. That isn’t as easy as it sounds with beef cattle. All beef cattle are primarily grass-fed. Even if they are supplemented with corn or other grains, grass and hay are the bulk of their diet. When the cows are outside all the time, they can eat as much as they want, whenever they want. If we were to keep them inside it would mean a lot more labor to keep them fed.
Dairy cattle eat up to 100 pounds of food a day. Their diets are carefully balanced to meet their nutritional and calorie needs. Dairy cattle are typically fed a Total Mixed Ration (or TMR). This TMR has lots of different types of feed, including hay, corn silage, and grain. Because beef cows mainly eat fresh grass and hay, they need to eat more than 100 pounds of food per day – grass and hay simply don’t have as many calories per bite as TMR does.
By keeping the beef cows outside, even in hot summer weather and cold winter weather, we are reducing the amount of time and labor farmers need to spend getting feed ready for the cows. We are letting the cows graze the pasture themselves, instead of using tractors, equipment, and fuel to harvest the hay. We can use barn space for other things (like calving pens), instead of using it for feed storage.
Why Do Farm Animals Live Inside?
Not all farm animals live outside all the time. Other farm animals get to live in temperature-controlled barns that keep them cool in the summer and warm in the winter.
Brian’s dairy cows are staying cool with curtain ventilation on their barns and fans with misters inside.
Heather’s pigs are also staying cool with curtain ventilation.
Tunnel ventilation keeps Katie’s turkeys cool during hot weather.
Farmers do our best to care for our animals. Sometimes the weather helps, and sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it would be great to be able to have the space and resources to turn all our animals outside for a romp. Sometimes it would be nice to have a nice cool barn for them to relax in during the heat of the day.
What are you doing to try to stay cool during this heat?
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- How Old Are Your Cows?
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- Are Your Cows Cold in the Winter?
- Why Do Farmers Keep Animals Inside?
- What is a CAFO? (Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation)
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