Heat Stress in Ruminants and Its Mitigation Through Nutritional Additives

Climate change is currently an undisputable reality and an increased environmental temperature in recent times is one of the indicators for the changing climatic scenario. “Heat stress” detrimentally affects ruminant production, causing adverse economic consequences to the producers. Therefore, mitigating the adverse impact of heat stress on ruminants may be highly beneficial in terms of improving/sustaining productive performance and thereby the livelihood security for the farming community. The strategies to sustain livestock production in the changing climate scenario must invariably follow two different approaches short-term (e.g., housing management, nutrition, etc.) and long-term (e.g., genetics and health management) strategies. There are several nutritional approaches exist to reverse the adverse impacts of heat stress. Specifically, altered ratio of roughage (forage)-to-concentrate, additional feeding of fats, probiotics, antioxidants, electrolytes, and mineral mixture may prove beneficial to relieve the heat stress in ruminant. In this regard, the objective of this chapter is to project to the readers the various strategies that are available to ameliorate heat stress effect in ruminants with a special emphasis on nutritional interventions. Given the huge economic loss attributed to thermal stress in ruminant operations worldwide, the dietary fortification strategies discussed in this chapter would help relieve stress on one hand and sustain productivity of ruminants as well as farm sustainability on the other.