Comparing Summer to Winter Ratios of SCS and Milk Yield among U.S. Regions and Southeast States

摘要

The Summer to Winter (S:W) ratio was developed as a metric to estimate alleviation of heat stress by cow cooling strategies (Flamenbaum et al., 2007). This study used S:W ratios to compare milk production and SCS in summer (numerator) and winter (denominator) using test day herd averages within each state or region. The closer the ratio is to one, the less heat stress is experienced by cows within the herd, with the opposite being true for SCS.