Q: What do you do to ensure your animals remain comfortable and healthy during winter months?
A: Cow care in the winter has many challenges. We still must provide fresh water, so we use water heaters in some troughs to keep them thawed. Where this isn’t possible, we have to break away the ice to make sure they can still drink. We have curtains on the barns that we will close to help keep it a more comfortable temperature for the animals inside. Calves do not have much extra body fat when they are born to help keep them warm. So, we have jackets made for them when temperatures drop. We make sure they have plenty of fresh straw to keep them warm as well. Calves also need adequate fresh air to keep their lungs healthy. To accomplish this, we have specialized ventilation tubes in the calf barn that force in fresh air but do not create a draft on the calf.
Aaron Mitchell milks cows and raises corn, soybeans and alfalfa on his family’s farm near Winnebago in northern Illinois.
See more: Ask a Farmer: How Do You Know When It’s Time to Harvest?
