EL-WiFi
Barn Temperature and Humidity Monitoring in Dairy Farming
How can data loggers improve milk production and livestock health?
Monitoring and maintaining consistent living conditions for livestock is essential to maintaining their comfort, health and production. This is particularly prevalent in the dairy industry, as dairy cows have a lower critical temperature than other livestock as temperatures above 15 ⁰C reduce the dry matter intake of dairy cows resulting in reduced milk production. In addition to this, humidity is an important factor as high-level milk production will produce around 10 kg of moisture per day in the area the cows are kept.
Optimum temperatures for these animals are between -5⁰C and 15⁰C with a humidity of 50%-80% to ensure optimum milk production and livestock health. In maintaining these conditions, barn monitoring of temperature and humidity is essential.
In addition to the productivity of the industry, these factors should be monitored to ensure conditions are met to protect livestock health as stress can be caused by cold, heat or hunger causing cortisol levels to rise and reducing the function of the immune system. In addition to this, high humidity levels can allow pathogen growth, over all increasing the spreading of disease and viruses amongst livestock.
In addition to dairy cows, barn monitoring is also important in the rearing of calves, whose immune systems are still developing and who grow better in a warmer climate (5⁰C to 25⁰C).
According to Farm Business, farmers have found that not only are there immense spikes in barn temperature and humidity throughout the year but within 24-hour periods where temperatures can range from 0⁰C to 25⁰C in January alone. This calls for a system that can alert the farmer to extreme temperatures remotely, meaning they can avoid issues by creating ventilation to reduce temperature and humidity or else, in a cold spell, cover exposed areas of the barn to increase temperatures back to an appropriate level.
At FilesThruTheAir, our range of WiFi-connected data loggers connects directly with the EasyLog Cloud, making temperature and humidity information available remotely anytime, anywhere. Using the EasyLog Cloud, the user can set maximum and minimum alarm values which will send an email alert if temperature or humidity is recorded outside of the desired range, giving time for the farmer to improve the ventilation of the barn before it causes a problem. For a variety of hardware options, view our EL-MOTE-TH (screenless, IP67 rating, 2-year battery life) and EL-WiFi-TH (LCD screen displaying live readings, IP43 rating, 6-month rechargeable battery) options.
For more information, see our Agriculture & Livestock information page.
Sources:
http://www.thecattlesite.com/articles/3932/fit-for-a-cow-getting-barn-climate-and-design-right/