18,000 Cows killed

[375 Ruger Fan]

Now that's a headline you don't see very often. Sad, sad deal for the dairy farm.

18,000 cows killed in explosion, fire at Texas dairy farm may be largest cattle killing ever

The biggest single-incident death of cattle in the country in at least a decade leaves officials asking, "How do you dispose of 18,000 carcasses?"

www.usatoday.com

 

[SETH RINGER]

I WAS BORN ON A 300 COW DAIRY FARM IN PA. SUPPOSED TO HAVE BEEN A BIG DEAL BACK THEN, PEOPLE WOULD DRIVE TO COME SEE THE BARN THAT WAS LARGE ENOUGH TO HOLD THAT MANY COWS.

 

[akrifleman]

That is a staggering number... even with today's modern milking carousels.

 

[7mmFan]

great, now milk prices will spring up.

 

[CJW]

I still can't wrap my head around this. How in the hell are you able to cram 18,000 cows into a single facility where they are all killed in one fire/explosion? How big was this place? Nobody could have opened a door at the other end to save even some of them? Was this really a small tactical nuke that exploded?

I'm no animal rights nut but I can't help thinking that this is cruelty on a massive scale, before and during the fire.

I can't help but think how remarkably stupid this is as well. Let's chance losing thousands of head all at once in one accident.

 

[Dudders]

I wonder if they ran an anaerobic digester at the dairy alot do now. With that many cattle that could of been a large system. If it went Bang that could cause alot of damage really quick.

 

[WAB]

I’m sure it was something like that. If methane is not contained it goes off with a flash not an explosion. It had to be in a contained environment with the right mix of oxygen and a source of ignition. Given those conditions, you basically have a bomb.

 

[ActionBob]

Before we start speculating more than the news organizations do....
It was a cross ventilated barn. I'm not familiar with that particular dairy. But on Google earth I measured the barn itself (without the milking parlor, which would be the T shaped small leg on it) to be 820' x 2400'. That is 1,968,000 square feet. Or a tad over 45 acres. Everything is bigger in Texas right

 

[Dawg2019]

That is a huge mess to clean up. Second, hope they had livestock insurance.

 

[ActionBob]

That site is a half section. Or about 320 acres.

Just to add an African twist, the initial report was that a Honey Badger was the cause of the fire

The official who said that mis-spoke. It appears to have been a Honey-Vac. Nothing I've seen is confirmed but if I'm to speculate.... That would be a manure vacuum truck used to clean alleys while cows are in the holding pen and parlor being milked. Hard to say what happened without more info but my best guess is a bearing went out or some other issue that started that unit on fire. It is likely diesel powered, either self propelled or pulled by a tractor. (We have some of both). When i zoomed in on Google, it appears there is a manure vacuum truck driving outside the barn

That huge ceiling would likely be insulated (to keep it cooler in summer and from sweating and dripping in winter) and the building itself would likely be all steel framed with steel roof. It is I suppose possible some some methane gas could have been present but I don't honestly see how. Unless the power was off but even then, they would have backup generators to run the fans.

To try to explain the cross vent barn, it likely has that entire 2400 foot long wall lined solid with large exhaust fans. Think 5 or 6 foot diameter or bigger but a full wall of them. A goal would be to maintain a 6 mile per hour air speed coming through that barn. That is why I really doubt there would be much methane built up. But anything is possible.

More likely the insulation caught fire and that ventilation system sucked it through the whole barn within seconds. Making it seem like an explosion.

The cows are obviously bedded on sand and fed with a TMR so no flammable bedding and feed would likely be about 50% water. So it almost has to be insulation.

 

[ActionBob]

For those speculating about a manure digester. Yes they are all the rage and lots being planned. Biden's Inflation Act puts out a bunch of money to encourage them but that would be building between now and 2024, recieving tax credits in 2025, 26, and 27. Very few actually built and even less operating right now.

I see zero evidence of a digester on that site. At least not on the Google map. Which could be outdated. However there are sand lanes for separating sand from the manure. And open lagoons.

 

[ActionBob]

great, now milk prices will spring up.

I wish!

Milk futures were up one day. Then reality set in and they have been down since. 18,000 cows do not move the needle in a domestic industry with 9.3 million high producing cows

We've been in a strong downtrend on milk price for several months now after 2022 was the best year for dairy producers since, well about forever. However the World growth trend in production looks to be far short of needs in coming years so I am very optimistic

 

[ActionBob]

Manure Vacuum - Mensch Manufacturing

Flexible!Adapts to your farm design! Simple Barn DesignBarns no longer need to have an integrated manure handling system during construction. The Manure Vacuum replaces the need for pumps, augers, and concrete channels to transport manure from the barn to the storage lagoon or process facility...

menschmfg.com

Not sure if this is the brand they had, but this company basically invented the self propelled version.

 

[CJW]

Before we start speculating more than the news organizations do....

Like my small tactical nuke theory was that off the wall? At 2:30 am it made perfect sense.

I still can't fathom 18,000 head even on 45 acres. Any rough idea on the size of each cow? I know they're always trying to produce smaller and higher yielding cows but damn....

 

[RLL]

Like my small tactical nuke theory was that off the wall? At 2:30 am it made perfect sense.

I still can't fathom 18,000 head even on 45 acres. Any rough idea on the size of each cow? I know they're always trying to produce smaller and higher yielding cows but damn....

Ballpark ~1200lbs per/head

 

[ActionBob]

As I understand it these were Holstein/Jersey cross breeds. Which has become fairly popular over the past 25 years or so. So I think 1200 pounds is a good estimate.

it calculates out to about 109 square feet per cow. Reasonable. Believable. A free stall where the cow lays down is typically between about 30 to 40 square feet. But then you have alleys for walking around and feeding.

The biggest such single barn i have been in was more like 8000 cows. These barns are typically very comfortable for the cows and workers. The environment is somewhat controlled and at least takes extremes off of both the cold and hot ends of the spectrum. Ventilation is typically very good although 800 feet is a long ways to pull or push air. I really don't know how well their ventilation was working in that huge barn.

Sand bedded stalls is the gold standard in cow comfort on dairies.