In addition, some dairy producers attempt to partially mitigate
the risk of heat stress by investing in mechanical fans and
misters. The distribution of milk production for such a farm
would be less variable than that used for this analysis since
mechanical fans and misters were not used in the controlled
experiment. Further, milk production on farms that utilize risk
mitigation equipment would be less correlated with THI than
the representative farm used in this analysis. Of course, there
are costs associated with purchasing, operating, and maintaining
risk mitigation equipment. Future research should examine
the joint nature of decisions regarding investments in mitigation
equipment and THI insurance.