W.LIV.3044 Heat management in the Middle East

Summary

Approximately 1,000,000 live sheep are exported from Australia to the Middle East every year. Excessive heat load of sheep exported from the Australian winter to the Middle East summer (June-September) continues to be a health and welfare concern, as sheep can be exposed to high environmental temperatures and humidity.

This suite of projects focused on research into heat mitigation of sheep exported to the Middle East, which involved the comparison and evaluation of different shade structures and other heat-reducing methods to identify which options will significantly cool sheep during hot/dry and hot/humid conditions.

There are several practical implementation considerations that must be incorporated into heat mitigation strategies to develop a successful option for industry adoption. More research is needed to improve the mitigation strategies, including how much heat is naturally generated by sheep.

Objectives

1. Monitor rumen temperatures of sheep under different shade types, structures, cooling methods (e.g. ground wetting) to assess the effectiveness of reducing heat load.
2. Monitor the condition of sheep exported to the Middle East and test whether supplementation of water electrolytes can improve their condition.
3. Monitor sheep through the export chain for clinical disease to provide feedback for best practice management of sheep in the process.

Key findings

• The conclusions from the suite of heat mitigation projects demonstrate that the health and welfare of sheep is negatively impacted in the Middle East under those conditions, at that time of year.
• The weather conditions were considered very hot & humid but not unexpected during that time of the year, based on previous data collected and weather reports.
• No intervention that was tested adequately alleviated the excessive heat load or its consequences.

Benefits to industry

Sheep exported to the Middle East during the northern hemisphere summer can experience high environmental temperatures and humidity, with the potential for increased risks to animal welfare and mortality. The outcomes from this research supported industry bodies in their policy decisions concerning in-market heat stress risks and their management, including following the Awassi Express incident.

The subsequent industry and government decisions to implement a moratorium and then a prohibition of certain sheep exports resulted in reduced risks of temperature stress, and enabled the continuity of the trade outside of the prohibition period (although at a significant economic cost).

MLA action

In collaboration with LiveCorp, MLA will continually communicate to industry and market trading partner’s regarding best practice heat management strategies to be implemented in the lead up to summer in the Middle East.

Future research

Future research should focus on:

• understanding of climatic risks and challenges along routes and at destination markets
• developing real-time predictors of weather risk using meteorology data (such as sea surface temperature, wind speed and direction, climate cycles such as El Nino)
• intervention studies into controls for ambient conditions (e.g. dehumidifiers, air-conditioning, coolants etc.) on vessels and in market to provide relief to animals under periods of high climatic stress.