How cow showers and fans help farmers keep cattle cool
On a dairy farm near Swindon, Sam Woolford presses a switch on the wall of the milking parlour and 10 industrial-scale fans whirr into life
On a dairy farm near Swindon, Sam Woolford presses a switch on the wall of the milking parlour and 10 industrial-scale fans whirr into life. "It's like a wind tunnel in here," he says. It blows my hair back, like I'm riding a motorbike at speed.
The cows like it too, it seems, and crucially, they linger in the milking parlour, clearly cool and relaxed. The system helps keep cattle comfortable during hot weather, but farmers say it cannot eliminate all of the effects of prolonged heat.
"Milk production is down by 20%," Prof Cannon says. She explains that "cows feel stressed just as humans feel stressed when it's really hot and, as a response to
that, their milk productivity goes down. "So farmers are trying to help their cows, by putting in big fans, or sprinkler systems, to just try and cool animals down."
The BriefWire