Farmers Protecting Livestock From Bitter Cold – CBS Pittsburgh

WEST NEWTON, Pa. (KDKA) — Westmoreland County livestock farmers will keep an eye on the temperatures this weekend.

You hear it all the time when it comes to your pets: “If you’re cold, they’re cold.” But on the farm, that might not be the case. And while extremely cold weather can be costly to the farmers, the cows like it.

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Craig Lash Jr.’s family has been raising dairy cattle and farming on their spread in West Newton for decades. And when it’s this cold, it’s not too fun.

“I don’t wanna go out much either, but you gotta do it,” the dairy farmer said. “They need to be fed and taken care of 365 days a year.”

As for the cows?

“For the most part, you keep them dry,” Lash said. “You want to keep their bedding clean and dry.”

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Regarding heat, the massive animals are essentially half-ton furnaces.

“They make their own heat,” Lash said. “If you have a lot of cows in here, it’s kind of funny, it feels like you have a heater in the barn.”

That is provided the animals are fed and fed a lot. If winter is super cold, that can impact the bottom line.

“They eat more so you buy more. You may run short by spring if you’re feeding more,” Lash said.

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As for cattle and their personalities and milking, generally speaking, they’re pretty docile. But there are a few that don’t like that, necessarily, but who likes coming to work in the cold?