An Iowa dairy farmer says the summer heat wave is having a huge impact on his herd.
Blake Hansen owns Farm Fresh Dairy in Hudson. His 150 cows make around 1,200 gallons of milk every day.
However, due to the extreme heat, Hansen says his cows get too hot to eat, and if they don’t eat, they don’t produce milk.
He says he’s losing roughly $1,500 a day.
“If it’s one or two days of hot weather, that’s probably okay. But when it’s weeks long, it tends to grow on them, and it’s a lot harder on them,” Hansen said.
According to the United States Department of Agriculture, heat stress in dairy cows typically occurs when the temperature-humidity index rises above 70 degrees, which we’ve been reaching every day since the beginning of June.
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