The best answer is probably "yes, maybe." According to Arkansas research, cows definitely benefit from having access to trees or other natural shade in the pasture. But there is an economic "maybe" if you have to spend much money to build artificial shade.

University of Arkansas researchers studied dry Brangus-crossbred cows on Bermudagrass from June 12 to Aug. 14. The cows were assigned to one of three treatments: no shade, artificial shade or tree shade. Actually, cows were rotated among the different treatments at 21-day weigh periods, so that all cows spent 3 weeks in each of the treatments.

Although tree shade showed more benefit, none of the differences was very significant.

Summer before last, Eldon Cole, University of Missouri extension livestock specialist, and Rich Crawford, superintendent of the UMC Southwest Center, conducted shade studies that are more typical of most Midwest cattle producers. At the Southwest Center from July through September, they compared shade versus no shade for 84 days with cows nursing spring calves.

"Benefits of shade look positive, although there were no huge differences in weight gained, especially with the calves," said Cole. "We also studied endophyte-infected versus endophyte-free fescue. Both cows and calves on endophyte-infected fescue with access to shade outperformed those without shade."

The real surprise of the study came later on, when cows were pregnancy checked.

"Shade obviously made a difference in pregnancy rates with cows on both infected and endophyte-free fescue," said Cole. "The trial began on July 1 and no bull was with the cows during the heat of summer. It appears we lost some pregnancies due to the heat with cows without shade.

"The artificial shades we used were actually smaller than recommended for the number of cows, and they have a metal roof," Cole added. "So, if they still made that much difference in pregnancy rates, what would a nice shade tree do?"

This summer, Cole is following up with a shade versus no shade pregnancy retention study. When you consider conception and pregnancy rates of cows under shade, perhaps there isn't so much "maybe" to the question after all.

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