Submitted by Hardscrabble Farmer
Thousands of Cattle Reported Dead
Heat Stress Kills Estimated 10,000 Head of Kansas Feedlot Cattle
The current heat wave blazing through Kansas feedlots has killed an estimated 10,000 head of fat cattle.
Final death numbers continue to come in, but that early estimate was shared with DTN by livestock experts, who put the geographical center point for those deaths at Ulysses, Kansas.
DTN calls to feedlots in the area and to ranchers whose branded animals were seen in some privately shared photos of dead cattle were not immediately returned.
What is known is that leading up to these heartbreaking losses, temperatures in the area were over 100 degrees Fahrenheit, there was humidity, and there was little to no wind to help cool the animals. Temperature readings reported for Ulysses began to exceed the 100-degree mark on June 11. By June 13, the high temperature was reported at 104 degrees, with humidity levels ranging from 18% to 35%. Temperature and humidity levels began to break some on June 14. Just a few days prior to the heat setting in, highs had been in the 80s.
Corbitt Wall, a cattle analyst with National Beef Wire who works out of Amarillo, Texas, told DTN he heard from two non-media sources about the extent of the Kansas losses. He noted there was frustration that despite such extensive losses, the futures market fell Monday.
“I know it’s hard for people in the business to watch that futures market, but it’s not real,” he said. “The only time those traders and speculators make money on futures is when the market is volatile, and they are watching these algorithms to tell them where the market is going. For people following the fundamentals, it is frustrating.”
NIGHTTIME COOLING IS KEY
Large losses in feedlots due to heat stress seem to start every year around June, said veterinarian A.J. Tarpoff, who works with Kansas State University Extension. He explained that when there is a “perfect storm” of too much heat and no opportunity for nighttime cooling, cattle can accumulate heat and die from the stress. It’s a situation, he added, that can hit both feedlot and grazing animals.
“Heat stress doesn’t happen all at one time. Cattle accumulate heat during the day, and then over the nighttime hours, it takes four to six hours for them to dissipate that heat. As long as we have a cooling effect at night, cattle can mostly handle the heat. Where we run into issues is where we have two to four days in a row of minimal nighttime cooling, and we start the day with the heat load we accumulated the day before still there,” he said.
Tarpoff, who spoke with DTN, worked as an associate feedlot veterinarian in Canada before moving to Kansas. He said it’s not uncommon to see issues with heat stress even that far north. And he pointed out that not all animals within a herd, group, or pen are affected by heat stress in the same way. A previous bout with respiratory disease that may have led to scarred lungs can make it difficult for that animal to cool itself. And there are other pretty basic reasons some cattle just don’t handle the heat as well as others.
“The second week of June is when, historically, we start to see this, and I think a lot of it has to do with the hair coat. Cattle can adapt to almost any environment on earth, but they need time. At this point in the season, a lot of them have not fully shed that winter hair coat and slicked off,” he said, adding that the fact that the majority of the U.S. cow herd is black also means they can’t cool as efficiently.
In this most recent reported loss, many of the animals appeared close to going to processors. They were fat, and Tarpoff added that in cases like this, once these layers of fat develop, it can put animals at more risk of heat stress.
HEAT STRESS PREVENTION
While every heat-related loss is not preventable, Tarpoff said there are several mitigation strategies feeders can use during the summer months. They all start with monitoring conditions and having a plan to deal with the stress.
In addition to giving cattle additional water sources, Tarpoff said it helps to use sprinklers overnight to cool the pen floor. Shades, large mounds, and keeping weeds and hay bales out of the way to allow for breezes are all basic strategies but are effective.
“We can also change feeding strategies,” he said. “The heat of digestion is real, it’s a byproduct of fermentation. So, a lot of operations actually gave a heat stress ration where they feed more easily digestible foodstuffs. They might also change the timing of feeding.”
Whatever contributed to this week’s losses, Tarpoff said he knows animals at that stage had to be extremely high value, given their size at the time of loss.
“The most expensive animals we have on an operation are the ones that have been there the longest,” he said. “We’ve provided them the most feed, yardage, health care and medications. We’ve invested the most in them. So, when you lose animals like that, it is quite costly to the operation.”
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How long does vacuum sealed beef Jerky last?
Good and dry, placed in the freezer, it’ll last a year no problem.
“The current heat wave blazing through Kansas feedlots has killed an estimated 10,000 head of fat cattle”
well that solves the cat food shortage.
(looking at the downvote) no cat food for you.
Outsied cats can catch mice and birds , indoor cats can eat from the table if canned food is not on shelves. Stock some kibble and keep plenty of water outside and inside for them.
when the garbage services cease and rodents multiply, cats will become very valuable.
Half of my daughter’s chickens died from heat stroke this week.
Did it look like one of these saunas the yuppies love so much.
As a kid, most chicken coops looked like this and never had those problems.
https://www.backyardchickens.com/articles/open-air-coops.48177/cover-image
There is a fancy Yuppy chicken coop but, they have a large open air coop with plenty of water. Tonight there was a report of a dog with heat stroke down the road. I think this is odd.
Strange indeed unless they are talking about these new aberrations called meat birds. I raised and butchered some of them about 10 years ago. Reminded me of a bulldog in feathers. Unholy.
My friends raise those. They grow so fast that about 5-10% of them die because their hearts can’t keep up with the growth. They turn blue and keel over dead.
Chick to 5+lbs in 10-12 weeks. Told it is a ‘natural’ breed as in not GMO, but the breeding for a trait has been taken too far IMO.
I’ve hunted for years in Ulysses.
It’s warm there even in late fall.
I would think feedlots in places like that would install
sprinklers to wet the animals, especially at night.
I’ve see it before.
Heard an interview with the VP of the KS Cattle Assoc today. She said they have sprinklers and shelter in feedlots and change the feeding schedule so they don’t digest in the day time during hot weather.
SW KS is arid. They never have humid weather. They claim that a “perfect storm” of heat, humidity and no wind (western KS is always windy) rolled in last weekend and everyone was “caught off guard”. Also, they can’t verify how many cattle were actually lost because the farmers don’t report this to the Cattle Assoc.
Believe or Not. Remember that show?
What breed?
Soy chickens , no doubt.
DTN? Not it the livestock biz. Interesting article none the less… Chip
Stop with the conspiracy theories….nobody knows. …reeeeee.
You mean, stop with the spoiler alerts…
There are no coincidences anymore. We live in clown world now.
It’s the UFO’s killing the cattle.
I call bullshit here….we’ve been in a hideous heat wave for weeks now and no dead cattle littering feed lots or pastures or wherever. That looks like a deliberate culling, which would follow all the other deliberate destruction of animals and processing facilities.
that fucking Gates has to be involved in this somehow.
That’s an amazing loss of product. All those hot ranching spots – Kansas, Oklahoma, Texas – I would think they would face 100 F stultifying heat waves all the time. It’s surprising to me that there hasn’t evolved some sort of economically feasible way to keep the animals alive. I don’t know shit about farming or raising livestock, but I’m still shocked that that many animals can die that easily. It’s only the middle of June, for God’s sake.
I don’t know if it the relative earliness matters or not. There were a few years around 2011 where people and cattle died regularly from the heat. Everything was dying back then.
Does anyone know if there is insurance for cattle, like crop insurance? Because I’m sure the feedlot owners don’t give a fuck about anything but money.
Ann Barnhardt weighs in with some interesting and good context:
There is no way that was heat.
Is there any way to salvage the meats,hell,even as a fertilizer or something?
McDonalds and The Sonic are in a bidding war as we speak.
Campbell’s own that beef, bruh.
So you’re saying that they will be serving real beef?
Hamburger, ground chuck, sirloin they need to be processed right away tho’.
I’m in east Texas and there’s something sinister about this heat wave. Just like there was something sinister about that Feb 2021 winter storm. Until this weekend we largely had a bunch of cool days in the 70s with plenty of small rain showers. Then we had a big thunderstorm and it got excessively hot and humid. My air conditioner was broke for 4 days and even thought it’s been “fixed” it still can’t keep up with the heat.
Come to south central Tejas as in the Alamo area. May is when we get the rain, we probably got 20% of what we should have. Haven’t had even a shower in the past 3 weeks or so with temps in May and now are what they usually are in August as everyday gets back up 100 or above with no end in sight. This isn’t going to break until we can get some tropical storms going in the Gulf.
The temps we have are also what we get in the dog days. It’s suppose to get as high as 103F at the end of the month.
Stephanie…my outdoor thermometer showed 106F the other day. Power went out for a long time. Came on and fried my fridge.
Yikes. That’s really bad and I thought I had problems.
I have concluded that I’m not capable of surviving the collapse.
I’m just grateful I’ve got plenty of shade and a breeze that comes in from my porch that’s helping to cool things down. I’ve also kept most of my lights off and unplugged a bunch of things. I guess I’m mildly Amish right now.
Mildly Amish…good to start getting used to that lifestyle.
Not surviving the collapse might be a good thing.
Yes, I’m fine with that, actually.
If you were fully Amish, you’d need some stranger to impregnate you. You never wanna go full Amish.
This was the thermometer on the shady side of my garage… 50C/120F
It went for about ten days like this, end of June… Worked outside mixing cement for a retaining wall… loved every minute of it… This year… rain and more rain… At least it’ll be a bumper crop of cherries this year…
brian…it gets that hot in Canada?? I had no idea. So you like the heat?
Yes… and yes… I live in the northern tip of the Senora desert… Thats why Texas has some appeal to me…
Ah, well, all this time I was worried about saying how hot it is here in TX for fear that you would change your mind about moving here. Now that I know, it is HOT, HOT, HOT!!! Can’t get any hotter, in fact. 🙂
I’m still eyeballing Texas and a few other spots further south… Columbia has a large appeal right now too… and… my obligations here just might be coming to a close fairly soon… So prep and scouting are on the menu…
file a claim with your power company as they sent a voltage spike to you. I bet there is a bunch of others with the same problem. When you replace the fridge, add a cheap power conditioner in line of the plug/outlet…….you’ll survive.
We broke that 3 weeks ago. 99 right now with triple digits forecasted for 2 weeks out. Lots of cows here too. I hope they are ok. SA is probably the 5th hottest place in the country because there isn’t much cooling at night, but this year god forbid the AC gives out. This is not normal even by our standards.
I bet SA also consumes a lot of electricity because of its casinos and tourism.
No casinos here nor a lot of tourism. You want to go to a real casino, you drive to LA, OK or MS
Is that even real? I never know these days. So much psyop and agitprop. I sure hope not. But good lord these Weff overlords will stop at nothing. To them I say no, leave me alone, f off, I do not consent.
I’m sorry for whatever happened to those cows, if it’s true. Despicable evil.
Weather isn’t real anymore
I was at UTA (University of Texas Austin) a few years back. They had ‘trifolds’ touting their partnership with DARPA. Search on SRM or RFMP. They really a screwing with weather.
Weather might be a bitch, but it isn’t sinister.
Look up ‘geo-engineering’.
You should move to north Texas…much cooler there.
No, it’s not. I live in north Texas, about an hour south of OK, and ranch in central Texas (yes, the commute sucks). Both are hot. North Texas just isn’t as dry so far this year.
here in Northern Idaho, we got 3 days of rain and the Moyie River almost went over its banks. Very odd this time of year, and hard on the garden too.
Temps 110 heat index , 90 mi N. of Fla. panhandle coast. temp got to 100 w/ humidiy + heat index
Not buying it.
“the majority of the U.S. cow herd is black”
this seems avoidable. can we ship them back where they came from?
Good luck getting them back in.
In Western OK Memorial Day weekend and the temp was 104 with a 30 mph south wind, but the humidity was in single digits so the wind only felt like a blowtorch. Sunday, the same town hit 111 actual.
I’ve lived in the deep Douth my entire life where the temperature during the summer is often 100+ and have never heard of a cow dying of heat exposure and many of my neighbors raise Black Angus. Sounds ‘spicious to me.
Bugs have no problem with heat. Eat more bugs .
Only if it’s Bugs bunny.
Bad things happening at an industrial beef feedlot, I’m shocked. And glad that I will be getting a half of grassfed beef from a friend in a few weeks.
Know where your food comes from and this won’t be as bad.
Feedlots… where the beef goes to get antibiotic boosts before processing.
There used to be a feedlot near here and I knew one of the guys that worked there. I had a couple days were I wasn’t able to get the usual truckload of local produce culls and he offered me some feedlot silage. I took it, naively. It was most wood chips about the size you’d get in OSB and the rest corn stalks with a large amount of what I thought was mold at first. Was told it was ‘vitamins’ but most antibiotic powders to keep the cattle from getting sick in such cramped containments. Oh… and my hogs wouldn’t go near it…
I wonder if this lose is a planned event as the operators KNOW how to mitigate overheating issues. Even spreading the cattle out would help. Maybe a wef operation?!?!? Insurance scam!?!? Something not right tho…
I thought that this is where “ground” beef came from.
Well, that would be around $20 million in dead cattle. Not a lot of folks would just flush that down the toilet.
HAARP
I am not a member of PETA. But from what I have seen of feedlots, those things need to be banned. Not good for the animal, and not good for whoever eats it.
Poisoning, sorry, just too convenient and too many all at once.
My hunch as well. Herds do not all get sick and die in perfect unison.
Maybe the cattle are getting SADS.
We’re all going to die, oh no, quick turn off the A/C, that should help.
Jimstoneindia has this as poisoned water.