00:00The summer months can be pretty daunting for dairy farms.
00:03Severe heat and humidity can be dangerous for cows,
00:06lowering milk production and threatening their health and ability to carry calves to term.
00:11These cows are coming from that part, northern part of Germany, northern part of Holland,
00:16which is very cold. They come here when the temperature and humidity goes up to 50 degrees.
00:24We are paying great attention to what we call cow comfort.
00:28The cow comfort is to take good care of the cows and try to get for her the environment
00:33which is similar to the environment which she was used to in northern part of Europe.
00:39Cows lose appetite when they are under heat stress. Less feed means less production.
00:43That's something no dairy farm in the UAE could afford.
00:47Sure enough, they have pulled out all the stops to
00:49protect their animals from the gruelling weather conditions.
00:52This is very correlated with the fertility of the cow.
00:56And if you inseminate 100 cows during summer, when it is too hot,
01:00none of them will conceive because of the temperature.
01:04So to get good results from in-vitro transfer and artificial insemination,
01:08you have to cool the cows. And that's why we have a cooling system.
01:12We call it coral cool. This reduces the temperature from 50 degrees up to 28 degrees.
01:2050 degrees up to 28 degrees.
01:23Barns across dairy farms in the UAE have been kitted out with overhead coolers,
01:27sprayer's wall and mounted fans. Curtains and shaded walkways protect the bovine
01:32beauties from direct sunlight while overhead showers at feeding barrier remain on throughout
01:37summer. If this were not enough, some farms have rented air-cooled industrial chillers to
01:42help the animals beat the heat. Even the water used by the cows for drinking is cooled to 20
01:47degrees. To maintain production levels, it is important for farms to maintain a controlled
01:52stress, free-cold environment. And dairy farms in the UAE are doing just that.
01:57Irish Eden-Beleza for Gulf News.
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