Housing and management to reduce climatic impacts on livestock

Weather is a constraint on efficient livestock production systems. Evaluation of the degree of constraint is a difficult, but necessary task before selection of appropriate modifications in management or environments can be made. The basis for rational selection from available alternatives for the limitation of climatic stress in livestock has continued to improve, particularly with the development of rudimentary functional relationships between animal performance and weather parameters. Such relationships, when combined with probabilistic knowledge of the weather parameters, permit prediction of the reduction in animal performance under natural conditions, or of the benefits to be derived from proposed housing or management practices. Even with the imprecision still present in current models, such information provides livestock managers with improved bases for rational decisions on the housing or management of their animals compared with the broad generalizations now serving as guides. Refinement of present livestock response relationships and the development of new models will further improve their decision making and should be pursued as rapidly as resources permit.