Cow Stress: Your Reality at the Farm Level

Research in the area of cow stress can be challenging… often during the process, only one or two stressors are studied, enabling cleaner statistics. Yet this isn’t the on-farm reality. Easily in farm situations, there can be several stressors that compound, making a bad situation much worse. We have all seen it. An example: A first-lactation heifer calves and is moved to a mixed parity group in new surroundings. It’s summer and it’s hot with high humidity. In this situation, there easily could be 4 or 5 stressors on top of one another. That is hard to research, but we all know they negatively impact the success that the young cow will have.

To learn more about cow stress, Progressive Dairy interviewed Chris Gwyn, Canada Sales Director at Jefo Nutrition. Check out what he has to say about the more than 30 different stressors that can interact with one another and negatively impact cow health, performance, reproduction and longevity.