A QUESTIONNAIRE-BASED APPROACH TO SOLVING HEAT STRESS IN COW FARMS

Heat stress represents a significant challenge to modern dairy production, impacting animal welfare, productivity, and profitability. Dairy cows, particularly high-producing breeds, are highly susceptible to elevated ambient temperatures and humidity due to their high metabolic rate and bulky body size. Understanding the factors that influence an individual cow's response to heat stress is crucial for developing effective mitigation strategies and optimizing herd management. Adopting effective measures to alleviate heat stress is essential for ensuring animal welfare and sustaining farm productivity. One innovative approach is to use a comprehensive questionnaire that evaluates various factors contributing to heat stress and helps farmers identify areas for improvement. Several key factors affecting a dairy cow's vulnerability and resilience to heat stress, drawing on current scientific literature were presented in this article. Also, we presented methodology of utilizing questionnaires as a powerful tool for identifying, understanding, and addressing heat stress issues in dairy herds and outlined the key components of questionnaire design, including question categories, scoring systems, and data analysis strategies. By gathering comprehensive information from farm managers and staff, this approach allows for a holistic assessment of farm-specific vulnerabilities and facilitates the development of targeted mitigation strategies. This review synthesizes existing literature and offers a practical framework for implementing questionnaire-based problem solving to combat heat stress effectively. This article outlines a 50-question survey designed to assess heat stress mitigation strategies, with each question accompanied by relevant indicators.