AUGUST ON THE FARM

To say it’s been hot would be an understatement.  The heat index here has been well over 100 for the past 3 weeks keeping us busy cutting misters on for the chickens and turkeys and sprinklers on for the hogs. Fortunately, we have only lost 1 hog and a few chickens to the heat which is fantastic considering even the night time temps have been high leaving little time for the animals to cool down. Even with high daytime temps, the animals will do ok if they are allowed to cool down over night.  Last year there were over 10,000 cows that died in Kansas over a 3 to 4 day period.  Daytime temps were hot, the humidity was high, there was little to no wind, and the night time temps remained considerably higher than normal.  It was the perfect storm that no rancher could prepare for and the result was over 10,000 dead cows.  Thankfully we haven’t experienced anything like that during the years we’ve been farming but we seem to be battling longer periods of high temps and high humidity every year.   This coming week we are expecting a tropical system coming out of Florida that will provide some much needed rain and is expecting to drop the temps into the low 80’s. I know the animals will appreciate this as much as we will.