Dairy cow heat stress within building microclimates

Our £1.24m BBSRC project investigates how farm building design influences dairy cow heat stress, driving innovations to improve welfare and sustain milk production in a warming climate.

As global temperatures rise, the need for climate-resilient agricultural buildings has become increasingly urgent. This project addresses a critical oversight in building science and animal welfare: while human-centric design adapts to warmer climates, livestock housing often remains inadequately prepared for extreme heat. Our research focuses on mitigating heat stress in dairy cows through evidence-based, climate-adaptive building design.

Current barn designs can exacerbate thermal strain during heatwaves, limiting cows’ natural ability to cool themselves. This project will systematically examine how architectural features, building operation, and external climate interact to create indoor environments that compromise animal welfare.

Using an integrated sensor network across multiple UK dairy farms, we will gather year-round, high-resolution data on indoor microclimates alongside detailed behavioural and physiological responses from dairy herds. This will allow us to pinpoint how specific design elements influence heat stress risk and welfare outcomes.

The resulting evidence will support the development of practical, optimised design strategies and management protocols. By bridging animal science with architectural and environmental engineering, we aim to deliver actionable guidance for creating cooler, healthier housing.

The project is structured around three core objectives:

To determine the key drivers of spatiotemporal variability in indoor microclimates, including the role of building design and management.
To identify behavioural and physiological responses of cows to these microclimates across short- and long-term exposures.
To develop tailored heat stress mitigation strategies for current and future climate scenarios.

Ultimately, this work seeks to enhance barn climate resilience, safeguard animal welfare, and support sustainable milk production in a warming UK.

Publication:

Heat stress monitoring, modelling, and mitigation in a dairy cattle building in reading, UK: Impacts of current and projected heatwaves
C. Liu, Y. Cao, Z. Luo, Y. Liu, C. K. Reynolds, D. Humphries, et al. Building and Environment
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.buildenv.2025.113046