With the current winter temperatures, people have to put on a warm coat to avoid freezing. What does it actually look like with cattle that are kept in cold stables? The Bavarian State Research Center for Agriculture (LfL) took up this topic years ago and researched how cattle stalls must be built in the future in order to optimally combine the areas of animal welfare, sustainability and profitability.
Cattle have a high heat production as soon as they develop from milk drinkers to ruminants, because the rumen digestion generates a lot of body heat. With a full-grown cow, that can be 1.2 kilowatts of heat output, which means that you could theoretically heat a small house with the waste heat from three cows. At higher temperatures, cattle quickly have a problem giving off the excess heat to the environment. Depending on their milk yield, cows are already in a situation where temperatures are around 16 degrees and they get too warm.
It is therefore obvious that the cattle are by no means too cold at the current temperatures, but on the contrary that they are doing really well, according to the LfL in a press release.
It can often even be observed that the cows like to stand out in the snow or rain. Some stables are therefore equipped with a run. Modern stalls for cattle must therefore ideally remain cool in both summer and winter in order to make the animals as comfortable as possible. Better air conditioning options, which are possible through modified facades and roofs, will therefore also be more widespread in stable construction. In addition, the LfL is researching further structural and technical possibilities to make it easier for the animals to give off heat. Here, for example, evaporative cooling or fans come into question.