Heat Stress Reaches Dangerous Levels Across Oklahoma

Jul 24, 2014

Heat stress is a serious problem, if you don't have your cattle in the right situation. Temperatures in the 90's, humidity and triple digit heat indexes are a recipe for disaster if you don't have shade for your cattle, if you don't some air moving over them, if you don't have plenty of clean fresh water available for them. Oklahoma State University Animal Welfare Specialist Dr. Michelle Calvo-Lorenzo says another thing producers need to watch is the time of day you work your cattle.

"Working animals and getting them out of their home pens or home pastures and putting them through a walk or a hike to a working facility, it stresses them out," Calvo-Lorenzo said. "Just that alone can elevate their temperature one to three degrees, which is a lot."

Dr. Calvo-Lorenzo is with the Animal Science Department at Oklahoma State University and she talked in recent days with Dave Deken of the OSU Ag Communications Department about how you can help your cattle cope with the heat. If producers have to work animals, she recommends getting them worked as early as possible in the day. In putting cattle into working or holding facilities, Calvo-Lorenzo recommends keeping that limited to a maximum of 30 minutes.

"Just really minimize the stress that those animals have to endure, because they are already stressed from the heat they are going to work with later on in the day," Calvo-Lorenzo said.

One important tool producers have access to weather information available through the radio, television and internet. Producers can find weather forecast's for the day as well as longer term forecasts that allow producers to know what's coming, giving them more time to prepare by setting up shade structures or hauling additional water, if needed.

Producers are gaining a deeper understanding of heat stress with several websites putting together heat stress indexes or cattle comfort advisors. Calvo-Lorenzo says these sites are taking weather information like wind speed, temperature, humidity in create a number, which estimates the comfort level of cattle.

"These models are becoming much more complex in understanding that weather and the environment is very different from one location to the next and they are trying to give us
a more accurate understanding of what the animal is feeling like, that way producers can instantly and quickly start taking the appropriate steps to make sure their animals have all the tools they need to overcome those really hot temperatures," Calvo-Lorenzo said.

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Video: Evolution of Beef Cattle Farming

The Clear Conversations podcast took to the road for a special episode recorded in Nashville during CattleCon, bringing listeners straight into the heart of the cattle industry. Host Tracy Sellers welcomed rancher Steve Wooten of Beatty Canyon Ranch in Colorado for a wide-ranging discussion that blended family history and sustainability, particularly as it relates to the future of beef production.

Sustainability emerged as a central theme of the conversation, a word that Wooten acknowledges can mean very different things depending on who you ask. For him, sustainability starts with the soil. Healthy soil produces healthy grass, which supports efficient cattle capable of producing year after year with minimal external inputs. It’s an approach that equally considers vegetation, animal efficiency, and long-term profitability.

That philosophy aligned naturally with Wooten’s involvement in the U.S. Roundtable for Sustainable Beef, where he served as a representative for the Colorado Cattlemen’s Association. The roundtable brings together the entire beef supply chain—from producers to retailers—along with universities, NGOs, and allied industries. Its goal is not regulation, Wooten emphasized, but collaboration, shared learning, and continuous improvement.