Most Beef Cattle in South America Experience Hundreds to Thousands of Hours of Heat-Related Discomfort Each Year: Study

A new study has quantified, for the first time, how much heat stress beef cattle actually experience across South America—as cumulative time spent in heat-related discomfort.

Using climate data from 636 cattle-producing locations across Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Paraguay, and Uruguay, the researchers analyzed five years of weather conditions and applied the Welfare Footprint Framework (WFF) to translate heat exposure into time animals spend in different intensities of thermal discomfort.

Rather than asking whether cattle are exposed to stressful temperatures, the study measured how long animals are predicted to be affected, and how severe that experience is, over the course of a year.

Heat stress as a dominant condition

The analysis shows that heat stress is not confined to heat waves or short seasonal peaks. In regions classified as high thermal risk or above, cattle experience heat stress on most days of the year.

Across these regions, each animal was estimated to spend between 280 and nearly 2,800 hours per year in moderate to intense thermal discomfort. In the most extreme areas, animals experienced heat stress for more than 300 days annually, spending on average over 11 hours per day under conditions that challenge thermoregulation.