It’s easy to get caught up on genetics, nutrition and feed efficiency when assessing milk production capacity in a dairy herd. While all are essential, an often overlooked component of increasing milk production is cow comfort, which is increasingly becoming a more studied driver of milk production.
As research studies increase on the topic, the findings are eye-opening and conclusive: cow comfort pays. Keeping cows comfortable has been identified as one of the greatest management performance multipliers in a herd.

Cow comfort should be a 24/7 initiative for dairy farms looking to maximize the genetic potential of the cows in the herd as well as the nutritional investments being made by the operation. And cow comfort often begins with simple, targeted barn improvements that put cow rest, airflow and environmental stability at the center of the management protocols. 

Cow Comfort Pays

For decades, the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Dairyland Initiative has led the nation in documenting the connection between stall design, lying behavior and milk production. Their work shows that well-designed free stalls with deep, soft bedding routinely deliver the 12 to 14 hours of rest per day cows are biologically motivated to achieve. This isn’t a random number, it’s tied directly to milk output, rumination efficiency, hoof health, and udder blood flow. Fewer hours of rest, the research finds, mean fewer hours of recovery and digestion and fewer gallons in the tank at milking time.

Across academia, the research is proving the same thing: cow comfort matters on the milk check.

The William H. Miner Agricultural Research Institute has repeatedly shown that every additional hour a cow spends lying down can yield 2 to 3.5 pounds more milk per cow, per day. Multiplied across even a small 200-cow dairy, those numbers are significant and drastically improve a farm’s rolling herd average, not to mention their bottom line.

In any case, the research should certainly motivate a look at current systems and management on the farm.

Rumination studies further reinforce why barn environment matters. Research from the University of Guelph—conducted in partnership with Miner Institute—found that cows ruminate 63 percent of the time while lying and that rumination time had a direct, positive correlation with daily milk yield and total lactation output. More rest equals more rumination. More rumination equals more milk.

And behavioral science research from the Journal of Dairy Science adds that dairy cows are highly motivated to lie down and will sacrifice feeding time, even lying down when they are hungry, if they don’t feel they are rested enough. Rest > Feed!

When rest is restricted, whether by overcrowding, poor stall design or heat stress, production suffers even if the ration is on target.

The bad news:

You can’t change your cow herd’s biology.

The good news:

You can change your barn and management to better accommodate that biology.

Better Barns = Better Cows

We’re here to help you reach your cow comfort and milk production goals. As a trusted leader in dairy ventilation and the solutions that improve cow comfort, our team supports your project during planning, install, implementation and beyond. There are no “past customers” once you’re part of the VES-Artex family.

One immediate, high-impact change farms can make is improving barn ventilation.

Cornell University’s PRO-DAIRY program research has proven that cows start experiencing heat stress earlier than previously thought. A lactating dairy cow can begin experiencing heat stress at a THI of just 68 degrees Fahrenheit.

Once heat stress begins, lying time drops, standing time rises, and cows burn those expensive calories of energy trying to cool themselves. A 2019 Journal of Dairy Science by Nordlund et al. study found that a climb from 68 degrees to 80 degrees, temperatures not uncommon across the U.S., decreased the time a cow spends lying down from 9 hours to 6 hours – an expensive loss for milk production that spanned several milkings.

Cornell ventilation studies show that high-efficiency airflow systems can increase lying time by over an hour on hot days, translating directly into better feed intake, higher butterfat, improved reproduction and fewer health complications.

And we make it easy for you to manage cow comfort with our patented technologies and effective cooling velocity fans for effective dairy barn ventilation.

Inlet, circulating and exhaust fans work together to bring fresh air into the barn, distribute it at the animal level to reduce insects and dry bedding, and remove contaminated air by pulling airflow efficiently through the barn.

Our stall systems, cow brushes, cooling strategies, and shade solutions are designed to increase lying time, improve cleanliness and reduce stress across the entire production cycle.

Producers who implement these systems see the same patterns reflected in university research: cooler cows lie down sooner, lie down longer, ruminate more and produce more.

That’s barn improvement that pays!

Because whether you milk 100 cows or 10,000, cow comfort is the foundation of dairy performance. And that foundation is strengthened every time a stall is improved, airflow is optimized or a barn is redesigned to work with, not against, the biology of the cow.

Better barns create better cows. And better cows build better dairies.