Physiological parameters of cattle and buffalo in different seasons under different housing modification systems – A review

Abstract

Shelter management is the manipulation of microclimate of the animals to suit best to their welfare reducing climatic stress without affecting much to cost of construction. House should be designed to meet the requirements health and comfort to the animals, convenience and comfort of the operator, efficiency of labour and materials handling and compliance with applicable health regulation. Problems related with the cost of housing,ventilations, scare resources, hygiene, manifestationof disease,behavioural concerns etc. Amelioration of these problems could be achieved by management intervention with respect to various components of housing and installation of cooling system to reduce heat. The major physiological changes involved in this acclimation and acclimatization while animals do acclimatize by gradually adapting to such stressors within their natural environment. During extreme weather condition open sides of shed can be covered temporarily with gunny bags, plastic sheet, bamboo mats, straw panels etc. Area-wise housing strategies for different kinds of the animals can be indentified and evaluated of new housing design to suit for different local condition based on locality available resources in this context could be explored. Also some modification in loose house can be very useful for example, in summer the thatch roofing succeeded in ameliorating heat stress but in winters, modification of floor with sand or rubber mat improved productive performance of dairy animals. Mist foggers, mist fogger with heavy duty dairy fans and ceiling fans are used to reduce thermal load during ambient temperature when body thermoregulation mechanism are not able to maintain normal physiological parameters.