Dossier

Heat stress on farm

With increasing global temperatures, the risk of heat stress for farm animals is growing. As pigs are not able to sweat and in livestock houses they generally do not have the opportunity to wet themselves, an ambient temperature above the upper critical temperature leads to reduced welfare and performance. This upper critical temperature varies per pig category (including weight) and is considerably lower for lactating sows than for newborn piglets. At high humidity even lower temperatures can lead to heat stress.
Source photo: © WUR

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Legislation

Knowledge

Knowledge: Cooling technologies

Tools for welfare inspection

Training courses

Last updated

This dossier was last updated on: February 23, 2023

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