Swiss army flies in to rescue cows from heatwave

24 Heures.

The Jura region of Switzerland has been hard hit by the recent heatwave. So hard that the Swiss army was called in to install and fill water troughs for parched cows. According to one farmer, a cow’s comfort zone is between 5 and 20 degrees Celsius. Outside this range they aren’t happy and produce between 15 and 20% less milk. A single cow drinks between 100 and 150 litres of water per day requiring one farm to transport 200,000 litres of water to its cows over the last 15 to 20 days. The army has installed two 35 m3 reservoirs filled with water pumped from a nearby lake. The army will set up a further six of 53 m3  in the region of Saint-Cergue-Provence. Those reservoirs far from the lake will be filled by helicopter.  This year’s heatwave is worse than the last one in 2003.

Read full 24 Heures article here (in French)

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