Farmers Work to Cool Livestock and Chickens in Sweltering Conditions

livemint.com:

Livestock and crops are sweltering under high temperatures across much of the U.S., adding to the agriculture industry’s costs and threatening production. Chicken and pork producers in southern states are using mist and foggers to keep birds and hogs cool. Cattle are eating less feed in the heat, packing on fewer pounds and potentially costing producers money.

Ranch hands and workers are tackling tasks before the sun gets too strong, or after dark. Brad Cotton, a Texas rancher outside of San Antonio, said his cattle have hunkered under shade to stay cool. After a cool and wet spring helped ranchers in the region regrow grass for grazing cattle, the heat is burning up his pastures again, and some of his neighbors are spending more on expensive supplemental feed such as hay.

“It’s been so hot and dry, people are starting to be concerned there may not be enough hay again," Cotton said. The heat also affects his work schedule. Cotton said the goal currently is to get started at 6 a.m.

and have everything done outside by 1 p.m. Persistent, scorching temperatures have lingered over swaths of the U.S. in recent weeks, with weekslong periods of triple-digit temperatures recorded in places such as Arizona and southern Texas, according to the National Weather Service.

Such waves of intense heat have been exacerbated by climate change, with extreme heat events increasing sixfold since the 1980s, according to the World Meteorological Organization. For the U.S. agriculture sector, this summer’s blasts of heat have accompanied drought in some regions, threatening crops and parching pastures used for grazing.