A new online tool, the "National Cattle Comfort Advisor" is available to help producers determine weather stress to cattle. | Download this photo
Great Plains Grazing to host 'New National Cattle Comfort Advisor' webinar
Free webinar open to anyone interested in a new tool to monitor weather-induced stress on cattle
January 23, 2018
MANHATTAN, Kan. – Cattle producers have always monitored their cattle in response to extreme weather conditions. A new tool is available that measures cold and heat stress levels on cattle. The National Cattle Comfort Advisor helps cattle producers closely monitor challenging weather situations and provides a way to measure the severity and duration of cold or hot events.
Great Plains Grazing team member, Albert Sutherland, will present a free webinar, “New National Cattle Comfort Advisor” at 10:30 a.m. Friday, Jan. 26. The webinar is open to anyone interested in learning more about the National Cattle Comfort Advisor. Specifically, webinar participants can expect to learn the basics of the tool and ways it can be used by producers to monitor stress caused by extreme temperatures.
This new, year-round tool takes into account: air temperature, wind speed, sunlight, and humidity. Using these variables, it calculates heat and cold index values. National maps are produced on an hourly basis at three different sunlight levels. Past maps go back to Jan. 1, 2016. The National Cattle Comfort Advisor can be accessed at http://cattlecomfort.mesonet.us/.
Sutherland serves as the Oklahoma Mesonet agriculture program coordinator and is an assistant extension specialist in biosystems and agricultural engineering at Oklahoma State University. He is also a certified crop advisor and certified professional horticulturist. His work at Oklahoma State Extension is to provide agricultural weather and climate education programs. In addition, Sutherland coordinated the product development of several agricultural weather and climate applications including the Oklahoma and National Cattle Comfort Advisors, Drift Risk Advisor, and Degree-day Heat Unit Calculator to name a few.
More information and registration is available at http://www.greatplainsgrazing.org/webinars.html .
Great Plains Grazing is a coordinated effort by a regional network of researchers and extension specialists to adapt beef cattle grazing strategies to changing conditions. Kansas State University is a collaborator in Great Plains Grazing.
