PALO VERDE, AZ — Energy bills run high in the summer. Now just imagine being tasked with cooling off 3,000 bodies, each weighing as much as 1,700 pounds!
For dairy farmers in the Valley, it is a daily challenge.
“The biggest challenge by far is keeping them cool,” said fourth-generation farmer Josh Gladden. “They’ll always lose a little production. They don’t want to eat as much. It is just like any of us, just not feeling quite as much energy in the heat.”
Gladden manages Saddle Mountain Dairy in Palo Verde. He says that during the winter, dirt fields can be filled with cows but during the summer months, the difference between sun and shade can be massive. Cows huddle underneath the shade in their pens where automated misters keep temperatures about 30º cooler than out in the sun.
“Early in the year when it just starts climbing up the misters turn on maybe for a few hours in the afternoon,” Gladden said. “But this time of year when it’s over 105º and pushing 110º, they’re running pretty much 24/7.”
The West Valley dairy produces milk for bottling, cheese and other products.
“Everything you’re going to find in your grocery store is going to be very local,” Gladden said. “You might not always think about it being in Arizona, but milk that leaves the farm is usually going to be in the store in about 48 hours or so.”
Gladden told ABC15 there are probably just under 200,000 dairy cows in Arizona.
At Saddle Mountain, the milking process begins at 4 a.m. every day, where machines will milk all 3,000 cows. The process is repeated later in the day.
Gladden says the process takes about five to seven minutes for 72 cows at a time. Once they are finished, the cows then head back to the pen to rest, relax and eat.
“They want to be underneath the fans and underneath the coolers,” Gladden said.
And just like your air conditioning at home, running this system round the clock isn’t cheap.
“Utilities are a huge expense for us in the summer but at the same time but if we don’t cool the cows they’ll continue to lose production and it becomes even more expensive for the farm,” Gladden said. “We want to take care of them just for doing the right thing, but also production is dictated by how comfortable that cow is.”
