With the support of Trouw Nutrition, Dr. Tom Chamberlain, veterinarian and owner of Chalcombe Consultancy, is running a project “Raising the awareness of heat stress problems with dairy farmers”. The project has a number of important targets. The first one is to increase awareness that heat stress can also affect cattle in temperate climate zones such as North West Europe and the coastal areas of Latin America and North America. Next to that, a target is to monitor the risk for heat stress with a parameter that is more suitable for grazing cattle, the so-called Dairy Heat Load Index (DHLI).
Dr. Chamberlain comments: “In grazing situations it is preferrable to work with the Dairy Heat Load Index, which is based upon recordings of humidity and temperature in a so called “black globe”. This black globe is placed where the cattle are grazing, giving you an accurate measurement of the conditions a cow really has to face. We now have real-time data for THI and DHLI available from seven farms in the South-West of England (See Figure 2). The results are available in real-time through our webpage.”