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The present study was conducted to assess the impacts of loose house roofing designs and materials on modulation of micro-climate of the cow shed and its influences on production and reproduction performance of lactating crossbred Jersey cows. The control group (T0) was kept in a traditional single-slope asbestos roof shed and treatment group (T1) at a specially designed open-ridge ventilated, double-slope thatch roof shed. Lactation stage, average daily milk yield, and average parity at the beginning of the experiment were kept similar between T0 and T1 cows. The specifically designed T1 shed had significantly (P < 0.05) lower temperature, humidity, and thermal humidity index as compared to the traditional shed (T0). The T1 shed was cooler and more comfortable than T0. Housing significantly (P < 0.05) influenced cardinal physiological parameters of resident cows. Body temperature, pulse rate, respiration rate, and discomfort index were significantly (P < 0.05) higher in T0 as compared to those in T1 cows. Improved housing significantly (P < 0.01) influenced milk yield, composition, quality, and udder health of cows. Daily milk yield depending on parity, monthly milk yield, milk fat, SNF, and protein were significantly (P < 0.01) higher in T1 than those in T0 cows. The milk somatic cell count, modified California mastitis test score, electrical conductivity, and pH of milk samples of T0 cows were significantly (P < 0.0) higher than those of T1. Effect of housing type, parity, and interaction of housing × parity did not cause any significant (P > 0.05) differences in reproductive traits such as service period, break period, calving interval, pregnancy rate, and other cow fertility parameters. Post-partum body condition score and body weight loss did not differ significantly (P > 0.05) between the two groups; however, more loss occurred in T0 than T1. The estimated net profit from housing of cows (N = 20) in a comfortable shed was 2200 kg milk per annum, i.e., 110 kg/cow/annum. The study concluded that a central open-ridge ventilated, double-slope thatched roof design created a favorable micro-environment and it significantly affected cows' comfort index; thermo-comfortable housing significantly reduced the heat stress-oriented drop in milk yield and decline in milk composition, and improved udder health and other milk production traits; however, its impact was non-significant on reproduction and fertility traits in Jersey crossbred cows.

This study evaluated the economic impacts caused by mastitis in a small dairy farm with similar characteristics and production to most dairy farms in southern Brazil and investigated if climatic variations influenced mastitis occurrence in the region. A farm with, on average, 45 lactating Holstein cattle was monitored from November 2021 to October 2022, and data on mastitis cases, bulk tank milk somatic cell count, animal treatment costs, milk production, animal disposal costs, and production losses were collected. Monthly averages of temperature, relative humidity (RH), and rainfall in the region were obtained. The greatest loss was related to the drop in milk production, resulting in 63.8% of total losses, followed by animal disposal (29.5%), milk disposal (4.6%), and treating animals with mastitis (2.0%), totaling a 10.6% reduction in the annual gross income. There were negative correlations between the clinical mastitis rate and monthly RH and between subclinical mastitis and temperature; the occurrence of subclinical mastitis and average RH were positively correlated. Our findings showed that mastitis negatively impacted the economy and that climate influenced mastitis occurrence., (© 2024. The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature B.V.)