Increasingly frequent extreme weather events including storms, floods, droughts and heatwaves create acute welfare emergencies for farm animals requiring better preparedness and response systems.
Extreme weather welfare impacts on farm animals can be catastrophic and rapid. Heat stress causes acute suffering as animals pant, crowd water sources and experience rising core temperatures that can be fatal within hours. Flooding of confined livestock is one of the most welfare-severe events — animals that cannot escape experience panic, exhaustion and drowning in conditions that cause extreme distress. Storm-exposed animals without adequate shelter suffer thermal stress, injury from flying debris and psychological distress from prolonged exposure. Better preparedness reduces these impacts: farm emergency plans, infrastructure investment in extreme weather resilience, access to emergency veterinary support and mutual aid networks among farmers. Climate change adaptation for agriculture must include animal welfare as a central rather than peripheral consideration.