Australian dairies are breeding heat-tolerant cows and seeing big returns on hot days that are making the global industry stand up and take notice.

Ever feel like wolfing down a big meal when it’s 85°F out with 80% humidity? If you recoil at the thought, that’s one thing you have in common with a dairy cow.

Australian dairy farmers can lose between 25% and 40% of their herd’s milk yield during the summer months.

Against this financial heartbreak, farmers are putting their heads and herds together and diving into the science of genetics to help create the cattle of the future, using the Heat-Tolerance Australian Breeding Value or ABV for short.

The history of genetic exploitation in animal agriculture isn’t exactly a textbook on animal welfare: quite the opposite in fact. In this case, Dr. Thuy Nguyen, who pioneered the ABV, said it improves the animals’ lives because it allows them to tolerate hot and humid conditions more easily.

Key to Dr. Nguyen’s method, created over 4 years of data collection, was using the right measurement: not core body temperature, surprisingly, but rather a reduction in the animal’s social milieu on hot days.

Dairy cattle on Trevor Parrish’s Kangaroo Valley farm tend to become lethargic when it gets too stifling, eating less, or not at all. They crowd together for some reason, making it even hotter to their senses. Even if they do this under shade, they proceed to pee and defecate in the same spot, over and over again, increasing humidity yet further.

Parrish was one of the first farmers in Australia’s dairy industry to use the ABV, and while the first breeding bull he examined had a value substantially under 100 (heat intolerant) another pair each had values far in excess of 100—showing him which ones to breed with.

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Developed in 2017, ABC News Australia reports that the ABV has received substantial industry use and financial support, expanding its footprint to include multiple Australian states, and even receiving acclaim internationally.

The acclaim arises from Dr. Nguyen and Parrish being the first among their professions in the world to a heat-tolerance marker for commercial breeding strategies, and now the US, Italy, and Spain are all investigating similar strategies.

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“The US tested our ABV and found that it works in their conditions so it’s great to see it make waves globally,” Dr. Nguyen told a special report series called Land Line from ABC

“To me it made a lot of sense to have a look into it and try and use bulls that were [more] heat tolerant so it would help the next generation moving forward,” Parrish told the same program. “I would totally encourage other farmers to use [the ABV]. It’s not getting any cooler.”

WATCH the special report below… 

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