Heat and Cattle

I'm affraid to leave the place for fear of coming back and not having a house.At least they put the burn ban back on. some folks don't have any sense.

We had 21 inches of rain in June, 15 inches fell in 4 days. It ruined some of my tomatoes even though I had them up in cages. We even had 6.5 inches in July. The ground is now dry up on this hill from the hot sun and wind. We would bring the milk cows into the barn and open all the doors when it was so hot. They had drinking cups near each cow so they could drink whenever they were thirsty. Hal

I live in Middle Tennessee. Every summer we have multiple hot spells of mid-to-upper 90's that last for a couple of weeks at a time. I raise black Angus cattle. We have lots of woods, and when it's hot, the cattle just stay in the woods during the day. They come out and graze from near sunset to a little after sunrise, then go back to the trees.

I have a reliable spring that runs down through my main pasture, but it gets very slow during the dry spells, so I supplement their water with water troughs. They drink huge amounts of water during the hot spells.

The cows seem to do well in spite of the heat.

Tom in TN

WORK CONTINUES despite the extreme heat at Raffia Farms in Enfield Tuesday, as farm workers top off the broadleaf tobacco plants in preparation for harvesting in the next few weeks. Enrique Lopez of Springfield, originally from Puerto Rico, sweats through his shirts as he toils in the 10-acre field. Mitch Raffia, whose family owns the farm, said he will pull the nine workers from the fields if the temperatures get too high in the afternoon.

They are 62 and 59 respectively and they worked in the fields with migrant workers. Generally, she worked the tobacco crop and the husband cared for all the other 600 acres of cotton and 100 acres of peanuts.

I was in tractor heaven today. he has 13 total from a 220 HP Massey down to small utilities. I think he is more of a tractor collector than he is farming. Some nice looking well kept equipment.