Dairy Farm Stray Voltage kills 100+ Cows

[OldDog/NewTricks]

Link moved here:

Here is a link to a jury trial in our county last week.

http://www.joplinglobe.com/local/local_story_297013343

It was not my case. The farmers are cousins of one of my best friends. The electric coop was a client before I went on the bench.

This is a new type of case around here, as discussed in the article.

The trial was two weeks long. Each side brought in their expert engineers. The jury decided in the farmer's favor and awarded 2.1 million.

Has anyone heard of similar problems in their part of the world?

 

[cert]

I didn't read the article but, stray voltage is a problem on alot of Dairy's. Most stray voltage problems I've run across isn't enough to kill the cows but will cause other problems.
Problems like mastitis and high somatic cell counts. It will couse the cows to go off feed and be really jumpy and flighty. All that results in a drop in milk production and loss in profit.
Most stray voltage can't be felt by us.

 

[Shorthornguy]

Stray Voltage is every Dairy farmers nightmare. It is something they constantly check. It can cause dairy cows to be jittery, spooky, cause high cell counts, production loses , abortions and sometimes death. It can be caused by faulty milking equiptment. Poor electrical installations and not isolating grounds. Substations not grounding properly, Electrical shorts in submergable wells and even electric fences not being grounded properly. In some cases with high voltage and substation problems it is cheaper to move the Dairy than to correct the problem.