Adapting the environment in small ruminant barns to reduce exposure to heat stress
- Project start: 01/01/2026
- End of the project: 12/31/2028
- Principal researcher: Pilar Merino
- Financing: INTERREG
- Program: POCTEFA 2021-2027
- Call: 2nd Call (open from January 21 to April 22 2025)
- Reference: EFA175/06
- Acronym: Fresheep&Goat
- Total consortium budget: €1,313,375.55
- NEIKER budget: €131,773.14
- Partners: Institut de l’Elevage – Campus INRAE Auzeville (Campus INRAE Auzeville – Qualité des produits, bien-être et santé), NEIKER-Basque Institute for Agricultural Research and Development, S.A. Autonomous University of Barcelona (Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona), Chamber of Agriculture of Haute-Garonne (Haute-Garonne), Chamber of Agriculture of the Pyrénées-Atlantiques (), and National Committee for Dairy Breeding (Comité National Brebis Laitières)
General Objective
The impact of global warming on livestock can be seen in an increase in heat stress events experienced by animals. Consequently, when natural heat dissipation methods are insufficient, a greater heat load can increase body temperature, decrease milk production, reduce fertility, and, in extreme cases, lead to mortality. According to a 2023 report published by the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the European Copernicus network, the continent has warmed twice as fast as the global average since the 1980s. Southern Europe is a particularly vulnerable region due to the intensity and duration of prolonged heat waves, which can have negative effects on animal welfare and health. Given the relationship between rising temperatures and ammonia (NH3) emissions, the impact of barn characteristics and adaptation measures for cooling indoor air on farms on ammonia emissions is a topic of great interest. This project will assess the effect of heat stress on small ruminants housed under different conditions by continuously monitoring climatic conditions and ammonia concentrations inside sheep barns, defining proxies for NH3 concentrations based on environmental parameters.
This will be done by defining proxies for NH3 concentrations based on environmental parameters.
Specific Objectives
- Share methods for controlling environmental conditions on farms
- Establish relationships between heat stress indices and NH3 concentrations
- Develop on-farm sensors for monitoring environmental conditions on farms to understand their effect on production and welfare aspects
- Establish correlations between on-farm sensors and meteorological data to define prediction equations considering the type of housing
