Dairy farm De Vries: "For several years now on our farm we have seen declining results in the June-September period. But never realized how much money heat stress really costs us! "

Customer Story,

Health

4 min

Lauren de Vries, dairy farmer milking 110 cows looks back at what the effects of heat stress cost her last summer.

For several years now on our farm we have seen declining results in the June-September period. But never realized how much money heat stress really costs us!

The first thing we always see is a marked drop in production, especially in the 0 - 60 day group in lactation.

Last year we saw a decrease of around 2.3 liters of milk during this period. Unfortunately, loss of production was the least of my worries. Like every year, we saw our somatic cell count rapidly rise, although, fortunately it started to fall again in October.

This year we also had significantly more E. coli mastitis during and just after the really warm days, we even had to cull 2 cows . Fertility seems to be our biggest challenge due to heat Stress, our veterinarian advised us that the number of pregnant cows after 1st insemination had decreased by more than 40% between June-August, even in the Autumn -Winter months some cows are still not pregnant.

Last year we saw a drop of up to 2.3 kg of milk and a lot of E. coli mastitis cases during the hot months. This year is about prevention!

Lauren de Vries

Dairy farmer

We regret not acting early enough during spring, which caused us to fall behind during the summer months. For several years I believed it was normal" that summers were more challenging due to the heat. Although, I read that some dairy farmers at home and abroad are able to milk smoothly all year round, I want to go full steam ahead this summer!

How much could I have saved through following a good heat stress plan early enough.

If we can half the effects of last summer, I would already be a very happy farmer!

This year's summer is hard to estimate, but I'm planning to not get caught again. This year Im already working on prevention!

The Phibro heat stress calculator has made it clear what I can improve on my farm and help my cows this summer to prevent the effects of heat stress. This will certainly result in a higher production and better margins.