Cool Cows!!!

The dog days of summer can be quite a challenge for cows.  The past few days have been in the 90's and our big girls need to use extra energy to keep cool in temps like this.  There are several things we to to help with keeping them cool and comfortable:

When the girls come back from the parlor and stop by their feed bunk for a bite to eat, they are treated to a misting sprinkler system which gently sprinkles cool water on their backs.  A similar system in located in the holding pen to cool the cows while they wait to enter the parlor.  Admittedly, on days like today, I tend to find myself walking through rather than around this area!!

Then once they return to their beds, they get the breeze produced by one of these 4 foot fans mounted over where they sleep.

Finally, in the summer months, we add extra water troughs to encourage them to drink on the way to and back from the parlor.  These water tanks along with the 3 located in each pen are cleaned and disinfected twice weekly to make sure they are drinking plenty of good quality water.

So in the end, I guess you could say we treat our cows the same as our kids.  You see yesterday, I sent my daughter Kelsey for a swim in her cousins pool.  My daughter Hailey is gone this week to summer camp and I made sure she had a fan along to keep her cool.  And tonight when I took Kelsey to softball practice, I made sure she had a drink along and reminder her and her teammates to make sure they drink a lot during practice.  Now if only I could get my kids to be as predictable and mild mannered as my cows....