Hot And Cold Cattle: Developing Cattle-Specific Thermal Stress Forecast Products
Presentation
| Paper/Presentation Title | Hot And Cold Cattle: Developing Cattle-Specific Thermal Stress Forecast Products |
|---|---|
| Presentation Type | Presentation |
| Authors | Cowan, T., Wheeler, M., Cobon, D. and Gaughan, J. |
| Number of Pages | 1 |
| Year | 2023 |
| Place of Publication | Australia |
| Conference/Event | 22nd Biennial Australian Rangeland Society Conference |
| Event Details | 22nd Biennial Australian Rangeland Society Conference Delivery In person Event Date 18 to end of 22 Sep 2023 Event Location Broome, Australia Event Venue Broome Civic Centre |
| Abstract | Weather extremes, such as winter chill events, heavy rainfall, flooding, and protracted heat can cause discomfort and harm in grazing cattle and livestock in exposed pastures. If the conditions are severe enough, as was the case during the Gulf floods of February 2019, animals can die from hypo- or hyper-thermia. Currently, the Bureau of Meteorology generates a national sheep graziers alert if there is the potential for chill and exposure, however there is no national warning system or forecast product for heat or cold stress in cattle. In this presentation, I will discuss the current research that is being conducted, as part of the Northern Australia Climate Program (NACP), on developing forecast products that have been specifically designed for predicting cattle comfort during both hot and cold weather conditions. I will first discuss three different cattle heat stress indices, using past historical heat events to show the types of weather conditions that animals are most susceptible to (for example, humid and sunny). I will then present a new seven-day cattle heat stress forecast product that is under development; these forecasts display the hourly evolution of accumulated heat load potential in cattle for different breed-specific heat-tolerance thresholds. Future work aims to extend cattle heat stress forecasts out to 2–3 weeks using the Bureau's sub-seasonal forecast model, ACCESS-S2. Finally, I will present the latest NACP research on constructing new cold thresholds for cattle in northern Australia, based on a comparison of the livestock chill index and the cattle comfort index, utilising historic chill events for ground-truthing |
| Contains Sensitive Content | Does not contain sensitive content |
| ANZSRC Field of Research 2020 | 370101. Adverse weather events |
| 370105. Atmospheric dynamics | |
| 370108. Meteorology | |
| Public Notes | Files associated with this item cannot be displayed due to copyright restrictions. |
| Byline Affiliations | Centre for Applied Climate Sciences |
| Australian Bureau of Meteorology | |
| University of Queensland |
https://research.usq.edu.au/item/zyyz0/hot-and-cold-cattle-developing-cattle-specific-thermal-stress-forecast-products
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