06 Jun Heat stress management in high yielding cattle
उच्च उपज देने वाले मवेशियों में गर्मी तनाव प्रबंधन Sustainability in livestock production system is largely affected by climate change. An imbalance between metabolic heat production inside the animal body and its dissipation to the surroundings, leads to heat stress under high air temperature and humid climates. The foremost reaction of high yielding cattle under thermal weather is increases in respiration rate, rectal temperature and heart rate. It directly affects feed intake thereby, reduces growth rate, milk yield, reproductive performance, and even death in extreme cases. Dairy breeds are typically more sensitive to heat stress than meat breeds, and higher producing animals are, furthermore, susceptible since they generate more metabolic heat. Heat stress suppresses the immune and endocrine system thereby enhances susceptibility of an animal to various diseases. Hence, sustainable dairy farming remains a vast challenge in these changing climatic conditions globally. India is first in milk production in the world production, with 78 million metric tons of milk from57 million cows 39 million buffaloes. This was possible only due to large scale crossbreeding of local breeds and non-descript breeds of cattle. Now crossbred cows are emerging as in important dairy animals. Nearly 9 to 11% of all the cows in milk are crossbred. The crossbred animals are more susceptible to heat stress. Heat stress...