YC.com: Working Cattle in the Heat

Hot temperatures and high humidity are very detrimental to cattle. During these conditions, steps should be taken to avoid additional stress. Physical exertion or excitement should be kept to a minimum. If cattle must be handled, moved or put through a chute, it should always be done during the coolest part of the day.

Dr. Tom Welsh, Department of Animal Science, Texas A&M, says "Avoid bunching cattle. Give them rest periods if it's hot. There's limited air movement in solid panel chutes; these can get very hot as well as being physically and psychologically stressful--which raises the animals' temperatures. If you work cattle, the activity and jostling (especially if they are not used to being handled and don't know how to move through the facility) will elevate body temperatures as much as .5 to 3.5 degrees, just from stress and exertion. Anything you can do to minimize stress will help. Work them in smaller groups, to give them less standing time when they are all confined in the long alley or chute," says Welsh.

Dr. Temple Grandin, Associate Professor of Animal Science at Colorado State University, designs many cattle handling facilities and has studied cattle behavior. The most important things, she says, are to work them in early morning when it's cool, and not get the cattle excited.

"Work them calmly. I have a measurement system for handling. Even when people try to work cattle calmly, they often lapse back into the old ways of handling them, because they fail to measure these things. Keep track of your prod score, for instance; how many cattle did you use an electric prod on? It should only be 2 or 3 percent." There should be no electric prod use in the crowd pen; most cattle can be moved through the entire system without it.

Another thing to measure is how fast cattle come out of the squeeze chute. "They should be walking or trotting--not running or jumping. This is your speed score. These are the two best ways to know whether you are stressing the cattle. Some other hints: only have the crowding pen half full. I can't emphasize that enough. Another thing that can help is to tie open that first backstop between the crowd pen and single file chute," she says.

During hot weather, she says it's usually animals that weigh over 900 pounds that are most adversely affected and most at risk when being worked. "When it's hot, it's the big fat black cattle you have to be really careful with. The dark coat absorbs more heat and they become too hot more quickly. If you end up working cattle later than morning, don't be working the black ones. You can get by working some Brahma crosses in mid-day--the ones that can stand the heat better. Sometimes you have to work cattle all day, but the ones that can stand it the best are the ones you should work last, when it's hot," she says.

"Another problem, regarding heat stress, is cattle that are not acclimatized. If you take mountain-raised Angus from Idaho, for instance, to Texas or the mid-West to a feedlot, they would be very prone to heat stress, and might suffer death loss. It becomes very crucial how you handle these." ©