[Blackbelly] Heat Dome!

[Mary Swindell]

Here in southern Illinois our problem is heat.  We have been under a 
heat warning for a week now, and it is not supposed to get back into 
the mid-90s until Saturday evening late.  It has been over 100 here 
every day this week, with extremely high humidity (we are the "land 
between the rivers" -- Mississippi and Ohio, and we get jungle-like 
humidity regularly through the summers.  But the present  heat wave 
effects seem to be cumulative on the animals, who are really 
suffering, more each day.  The night temperatures are not cool enough 
for them to recover.  I am emptying and refilling 50-gallon water 
troughs twice per day because the water gets so hot that the animals 
won't drink it.  Half my ewes are at the end stages of nursing and 
are emaciated, and the other half are over 3 months pregnant and are 
getting big.  All are noticably miserable.  I hope we all survive, 
and I hope this heat will end soon!  This is the second heat warning 
of a week or more that we've had this summer.  Our NPR radio station 
said that after this present heat wave subsides (and that means 
temperatures going down below the mid-90s, into the lower 90s), there 
is another one expected within a couple weeks afterward.

My goal for this time is to keep everyone alive.
Mary Swindell

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