Heat stress management in livestock requires proactive environmental modification, genetic selection, and management changes to protect animals as global temperatures rise.
Heat stress prevention is a welfare priority that is also economically rational - the productivity losses from heat stress provide financial incentive for management improvement that welfare concerns alone may not motivate. However, the welfare motivation should be primary: livestock experiencing heat stress suffer reduced feed intake (and associated hunger), hyperthermia, immune suppression, and in severe cases organ damage and death. The economic alignment between welfare and production is fortunate but does not make the welfare argument dependent on economics. As climate change increases heat stress prevalence, investment in shade, cooling, and heat-tolerant genetics is increasingly urgent from both welfare and production perspectives.