Determining heat stress effect in Holstein dairy cattle using daily milkyield and meteorological data obtained from public weatherstation in Sanliurfa Province of Turkey

Abstract

The objective of this study was to detect the relationship between weather information, obtained from nearest public weather station, and milk productions of Holstein cows breeding in Sanliurfa province of Turkey. Data used in this study comprised 711,968 first-five parity individual daily milk and live weight records of 939 Holstein cows. Results from this study indicated that using combination of minimum ambient temperature and relative humidity values one day earlier from daily milk yield in temperature – humidity index (THI) formula can be good alternative for determining heat stress in Holstein dairy cows under climatological conditions in Sanliurfa province of Turkey. As a result, this study confirmed that for quantifying heat stress in dairy cows valuable information can obtained from public weather stations.