The drought and the high temperatures that every year seem to break more records around the world do not only affect human life and the natural environment. Animals also suffer from the continued extreme heat, and that includes the very livestock on which millions of people around the world depend. The cowsSpecifically, they begin to suffer the effects from 25ºC, causing a decrease in their milk productivity and even leading to death.
He heat stress that cattle must endure reduces the animal’s feed consumption and also weight, milk production and breeding efficiency, thus affecting both meat cattle and, above all, dairy cows. In 2022, in just two days of intense heat and severe humidity in Kansas (United States), some 10,000 animals died, and it does not seem that the situation will improve in the near future.
The sector will have to adapt to the new panorama in addition to facing the drought and food shortage itself, and a solution it could be in the calf of the cows themselves. If agriculture is working to develop varieties that can withstand extreme heat and water scarcity, there are also farmers raising better adapted animals.
The genetic mutation of short hair
The one known as short hair mutation either slick hair It is a phenotype of bovine cattle that is characterized by the appearance of its fur. They are cows with a low density of hair follicles throughout the body, with particularly short hair and a soft, smooth, almost slippery appearance (slick). And this particularity is not only physical, as it makes them especially resistant to high temperatures.
It is a mutation produced natural through adaptation to their own environment, manifested above all in Creole and South American animals. Its origin comes from the Mediterranean cows that arrived in America from the first trips of Christopher Columbus, continued through the commercial routes and European colonizations. The hypothesis most supported by scientific studies is that the mutation was produced multiple times through independent events, by mechanisms of natural and artificial selection, adapting the animal with survival advantages superior to the previous wild-type phenotype.
Cows with this mutation are better adapted to extreme heat.
Cows, like all mammals, have the ability to produce milkdevelop hair throughout their bodies and are able to regulate body temperature (homeothermy), unlike, for example, reptiles. And we know that they are characteristics biochemically linked to each other. That is, changing one of those abilities will affect the other two.
Dairy cows doomed for their own productive capacity
In the Dairy ‘El Remanso’, near San Juan de Puerto Rico (United States), the cows clearly show a coat different from that of any common European or North American cattle farm. They seem, as Katherine Rapin describes in Nexus Media News, freshly shaved, as exits from the hairdresser. Its body looks very soft to the touch, almost silky.
They are cows that their owner, Rafael López-López, has spent decades raising animals with the generic mutation slick hairAnd he does it conscientiously. This particular short and sparse hair gives their animals the ability to better regulate their body temperature, keeping it low when the heat is on. are cows with more active sweat glands and efficient, which protect the animal from extreme conditions.
The more milk a cow produces, the more energy it consumes and the more heat it generates.
Paradoxically, decades of breeding cattle for increased milk production around the world have caused them to become much more susceptible to heat. A cow that produces more milk needs to eat more and metabolize food faster, consuming more resources from her body, and therefore raising its temperature further. If the weather conditions add even more heat, the animal suffers heat stress and it can affect their immune system, making them more susceptible to contracting diseases.
Farmers and the industry are aware of this problem. Every year, with the arrival of the warm months, extreme and continuous heat waves affect thousands of animals in the United States, Europe and already half the world. Producers try to alleviate these effects with physical methods of all kinds, even resorting to fans or, who can afford it, to heat conditioning the installations. But the losses do not stop growing season after season.
This is not the case in El Remanso, where, despite the notable daily heat and high humidity, the cows seem fresh and healthymeeting the forecasts of milk production without problems.
The natural mutation against climate change
As they point out in Colombian Bovine Genetics Magazineso far some six races with the mutation slick, such as the Romosinuano cow, White Orejinegro, Lemon tree, Carora and Senepol. But it is the Holstein that most interests the experts.
Traditionally, the holstein cow of Dutch origin has been preferred for the dairy industry, as it is a breed with a high milk production capacity in terms of volume. The problem is that the Netherlands is a temperate region with not very hot summers, at least until recently.
Healthier, more productive and more fertile cows
However, the Hosltein cow with the shorthair mutation is able to maintain its lower body temperature and it resists better to extreme conditions, without affecting its fertility or resistance to diseases. They continue to produce a large amount of milk even on the hottest days, as López-López confirms. And they reproduce more easily.
Experiences like this and other Puerto Rican dairy farms are opening promising lines of research in the scientific community. Although it is still necessary to determine which mutations of which breeds are best adapted to the conditions of each specific region, it is a promising strategy to alleviate the effects of climate change on the economy of many countries, not only in the Tropics.
Breeding animals capable of resisting in an increasingly warm planet, without diminishing their milk production or reproductive capacity, will be much more effective than adapting the facilities or the environment of the same cattle. and it has been nature itself the one that has taken the initiative to defend itself against a problem that we human beings have created.
Historia del cambio climático/ History of Climate Change (Scientific Disclosure)
Photos | Dairy El Remanso – USDA – LID – jcomp – wirestock – aleksandarlittlewolf
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