22 ms·

Fiery explosion at Texas dairy farm kills 18,000 cows

42 points by bluedino 4y ago

bell-cot 4y ago
At some level of utterly pointless and catastrophically destructive f*uck-up, it would be nice if the people who were supposed to be responsible were legally declared Non compos mentis. For life.
kylecazar 4y ago
That's tragic. For the cows, the farm, the town. There probably isn't even a way to minimize waste, I imagine slaughter houses and those cattle in the US are subject to strict regulations/inspection etc. Can't just butcher a bunch of dead dairy cows.
- droopyEyelids 4y ago
  Theyll be rendered for their fat and ground into feed for pigs
yesfitz 4y ago
If you're moved by these deaths, I'd recommend watching the documentary, Earthlings.
- dmbche 4y ago
  Dominion(Australia) is also an option, more recent and also available on youtube, as well as Land of Hope and Glory (UK)
barbazoo 4y ago
> The aftermath of the tragic fire revealed that a staggering 18,000 cattle died - nearly three times the amount of cows slaughtered each day in the US. That number sounds too low. According to [0]: > According to the USDA, in May 2019 2.94 million cattle were slaughtered in the U.S. This equates to roughly 95,000 cattle being killed per day during the month. If you're a meat eater, this shouldn't shock you at all. Hundreds of millions of cows are killed for food each year and even if not killed for food but used for milking, their conditions are horrible mostly. [0] https://sentientmedia.org/how-many-animals-are-killed-for-food-every-day/ https://sentientmedia.org/how-many-animals-are-killed-for-fo...
- local_crmdgeon 4y ago
  [flagged]
  - barbazoo 4y ago
    You're right, it looks like it's closer to 8000 as per https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/lstk0522.pdf https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/report...
- Gordonjcp 4y ago
  That sounds like a lot. 95,000 cattle is enough to feed 95 million people. Edit: I guess that's about 1/3 the population of the US, so it's probably not far off.
  - barbazoo 4y ago
    You're right, it looks like it's closer to 8000 as per https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/lstk0522.pdf https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/report...
    - Gordonjcp 4y ago
      See, 8000 doesn't seem like enough. Only eight million people eat a portion of beef on a given day? Obviously it doesn't quite scale like that - not every cut of meat is a prime steak, some of it you'd chop up and stew. But a big pot of stew will feed a dozen people, and doesn't use a lot of cow, and what it does use is not an expensive bit. Right now livestock is the best thing we have for turning stuff humans can't eat into stuff humans can. I can't eat grass. Sheep can. Cows can. Hens eat everything.
      - barbazoo 4y ago
        > Right now livestock is the best thing we have for turning stuff humans can't eat into stuff humans can. I can't eat grass. Sheep can. Cows can. Hens eat everything. Almost all humans can live healthily without eating animals. > Because there are so many protein-rich plant foods, you can easily get enough protein on a vegan diet. Plus, experts agree that a well-planned plant-based diet provides all of the nutrients you need, including protein (2Trusted Source, 3Trusted Source, 4Trusted Source). https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vegan-protein-sources-chart https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vegan-protein-sources-c...
trollerator23 4y ago
Mmm steak
dmbche 4y ago
(this is all alleged) It's nice that this is news but please be aware that farm fires, silos falling on farms and farms generally just collapsing is much, much more common than in any other type of building due to being an edge case in fire safety. Farmers are also not encouraged to take precautions to save their animals in case of emergency, as if they die they are paid back by insurance, while if they survive they must be transported and boarded or lent to other farmers. I have heard rumors of these issues being more common in this industry because the costs to bring farms "up to code" from when they were built 40 years ago is too expensive, and it's simply more financially sound to burn it down - and it's very difficult to prove mischief, since farms are famously run down building filled with old bad wiring and flamable wood shaving and hay.
- dmbche 4y ago
  -Broiler chicken farms have 17 000 chickens per level, often with 3-4 level per building,are filled with wood shaving and heated with propane burners. They are also wildly unreported, and deaths underreported.
  - skyyler 4y ago
    My first job was collecting the sick / dead chickens off the floor at a chicken farm. No one was asking how many I picked up, I always assumed the number of chicks dropped off was compared to the number of mature chickens. But maybe no one was even doing that.
wildekek 4y ago
What kind of material does a farm of this size hold that makes it possible to explode in such violent way?
- vinyl7 4y ago
  Cow farts
- pcurve 4y ago
  Methane recapture mechanism.
- aaron695 4y ago
  [dead]
tomatotomato37 4y ago
Has the numbers on those deaths beens confirmed? I've seen some mumblings on Twitter that the sheer space required to house 18000 heads in any useful capacity would require something more akin to a tactical nuke to get everything, with one post bringing up a different dairy farm which needed 10 separate barn structures in order to house & milk their 30k herd.
- suddenclarity 4y ago
  I assume the deaths probably had more to do with the fire, smoke and panic than the actual explosion. But yeah, I don't know about US, but here it would require multiple buildings covering football fields to house that many animals. It's tricky to grasp the reason for those numbers.
- dmbche 4y ago
  The article mentions the cows were huddled together on the way to being milked, and there were no human victim - they seemingly corral everyone in a single pen prior to milking, where the explosion occured.

42 points by bluedino 4y ago

At some level of utterly pointless and catastrophically destructive f*uck-up, it would be nice if the people who were supposed to be responsible were legally declared Non compos mentis. For life.

kylecazar 4y ago

That's tragic. For the cows, the farm, the town. There probably isn't even a way to minimize waste, I imagine slaughter houses and those cattle in the US are subject to strict regulations/inspection etc. Can't just butcher a bunch of dead dairy cows.

droopyEyelids 4y ago
Theyll be rendered for their fat and ground into feed for pigs

yesfitz 4y ago

If you're moved by these deaths, I'd recommend watching the documentary, Earthlings.

dmbche 4y ago
Dominion(Australia) is also an option, more recent and also available on youtube, as well as Land of Hope and Glory (UK)

barbazoo 4y ago

> The aftermath of the tragic fire revealed that a staggering 18,000 cattle died - nearly three times the amount of cows slaughtered each day in the US. That number sounds too low. According to [0]: > According to the USDA, in May 2019 2.94 million cattle were slaughtered in the U.S. This equates to roughly 95,000 cattle being killed per day during the month. If you're a meat eater, this shouldn't shock you at all. Hundreds of millions of cows are killed for food each year and even if not killed for food but used for milking, their conditions are horrible mostly. [0] https://sentientmedia.org/how-many-animals-are-killed-for-food-every-day/ https://sentientmedia.org/how-many-animals-are-killed-for-fo...

local_crmdgeon 4y ago
[flagged]
- barbazoo 4y ago
  You're right, it looks like it's closer to 8000 as per https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/lstk0522.pdf https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/report...
Gordonjcp 4y ago
That sounds like a lot. 95,000 cattle is enough to feed 95 million people. Edit: I guess that's about 1/3 the population of the US, so it's probably not far off.
- barbazoo 4y ago
  You're right, it looks like it's closer to 8000 as per https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/reports/lstk0522.pdf https://www.nass.usda.gov/Publications/Todays_Reports/report...
  - Gordonjcp 4y ago
    See, 8000 doesn't seem like enough. Only eight million people eat a portion of beef on a given day? Obviously it doesn't quite scale like that - not every cut of meat is a prime steak, some of it you'd chop up and stew. But a big pot of stew will feed a dozen people, and doesn't use a lot of cow, and what it does use is not an expensive bit. Right now livestock is the best thing we have for turning stuff humans can't eat into stuff humans can. I can't eat grass. Sheep can. Cows can. Hens eat everything.
    - barbazoo 4y ago
      > Right now livestock is the best thing we have for turning stuff humans can't eat into stuff humans can. I can't eat grass. Sheep can. Cows can. Hens eat everything. Almost all humans can live healthily without eating animals. > Because there are so many protein-rich plant foods, you can easily get enough protein on a vegan diet. Plus, experts agree that a well-planned plant-based diet provides all of the nutrients you need, including protein (2Trusted Source, 3Trusted Source, 4Trusted Source). https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vegan-protein-sources-chart https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/vegan-protein-sources-c...

trollerator23 4y ago

Mmm steak

dmbche 4y ago

(this is all alleged) It's nice that this is news but please be aware that farm fires, silos falling on farms and farms generally just collapsing is much, much more common than in any other type of building due to being an edge case in fire safety. Farmers are also not encouraged to take precautions to save their animals in case of emergency, as if they die they are paid back by insurance, while if they survive they must be transported and boarded or lent to other farmers. I have heard rumors of these issues being more common in this industry because the costs to bring farms "up to code" from when they were built 40 years ago is too expensive, and it's simply more financially sound to burn it down - and it's very difficult to prove mischief, since farms are famously run down building filled with old bad wiring and flamable wood shaving and hay.

dmbche 4y ago
-Broiler chicken farms have 17 000 chickens per level, often with 3-4 level per building,are filled with wood shaving and heated with propane burners. They are also wildly unreported, and deaths underreported.
- skyyler 4y ago
  My first job was collecting the sick / dead chickens off the floor at a chicken farm. No one was asking how many I picked up, I always assumed the number of chicks dropped off was compared to the number of mature chickens. But maybe no one was even doing that.

wildekek 4y ago

What kind of material does a farm of this size hold that makes it possible to explode in such violent way?

vinyl7 4y ago
Cow farts
pcurve 4y ago
Methane recapture mechanism.
aaron695 4y ago
[dead]

tomatotomato37 4y ago

Has the numbers on those deaths beens confirmed? I've seen some mumblings on Twitter that the sheer space required to house 18000 heads in any useful capacity would require something more akin to a tactical nuke to get everything, with one post bringing up a different dairy farm which needed 10 separate barn structures in order to house & milk their 30k herd.

suddenclarity 4y ago
I assume the deaths probably had more to do with the fire, smoke and panic than the actual explosion. But yeah, I don't know about US, but here it would require multiple buildings covering football fields to house that many animals. It's tricky to grasp the reason for those numbers.
dmbche 4y ago
The article mentions the cows were huddled together on the way to being milked, and there were no human victim - they seemingly corral everyone in a single pen prior to milking, where the explosion occured.