For the first time this summer, Leroy Shatto had to tell vendors that Shatto Milk Co. didn’t have enough milk to supply some of its usual products.
On Tuesday, Shatto Milk pulled its coffee, banana and orange dream milk because of the lack of supply.
His 380 dairy cows are healthy, but the heat is getting to them. Combine production declines with rising feed costs and higher water and electricity bills, and it’s shaping up to be a long summer for Kansas City-area dairy farmers.
Shatto Milk uses sprinklers and fans 24 feet in diameter to help cool the cows, but days-long strings of weather topping 100 degrees have taken a toll. The heat makes cows eat less, which has translated into a 20 percent hit to production — a drop of about 400 gallons a day. That’s despite the 25 extra cows the farm brought in for the summer.
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