Cold stress and hypothermia pose significant welfare risks to livestock in winter, particularly for young animals, recently shorn sheep, and those in inadequate housing. Cold weather welfare protocols are an important component of farm animal management.
Cold weather livestock welfare requires management responses calibrated to species, age, and recent management history. Prevention is the welfare ideal: appropriate housing with adequate bedding, windbreaks for outdoor livestock, and careful timing of management events (shearing, late-term pregnancy, lambing) relative to weather forecasts. Response protocols for cold stress emergencies - warming hypothermic lambs, providing deep bedding, increasing energy supplementation in cold snaps - require prior preparation and stockperson training. The welfare cost of cold stress is real but preventable with appropriate planning, unlike some other welfare challenges that require system-level change.