Global warming will take a toll on the animals’ well-being, since they usually prefer temperatures between -5°C and 18°C. Should temperature and humidity increase, heat stress will start to kick-in, thus lowering animal welfare and their productivity.

Hence, the Animal Welfare group will focus on two different issues:

• Heat stress within buildings. The group will study the tools, sensors and methods to perform building diagnoses, focusing on ventilation and air exchange, in order to identify the most relevant tools. A method shall be cowritten to perform building diagnoses with the help of a tool developed by Idede. The data obtained will be compiled in order to produce a set of recommendations through data sheets, articles and videos
• The issue of heat stress identification, according to indoor and outdoor conditions (temperature & humidity). The group also wants to identify animals which are more heat-resistant thanks to various data (milk production, spectral, health and activity data). For this purpose, the data of the different structures and farms need to be compiled to compare the results. The diagnosis data of 20 farms will then be compiled into recommendations and data sheets available to the farmers and other who might be interested. A workshop on heat stress will also be organised.

Figure 4: Sensors installed in the pilot farms enable the recording of temperature and humidity data.