‘Stray Voltage’--a Shocking Barnyard Woe
Something’s very strange about the cows in Roy Lemmenes’ dairy barn and the details could be shocking--quite literally.
Most cows stick their muzzles in water and guzzle greedily. Lemmenes’ only lap at it gingerly with their tongues. Tails flick rapidly across their rumps even when there aren’t any flies around to shoo. Rather than stand placid and cow-like in their stalls they do a kind of fidgety bovine rumba, shifting uncomfortably on their feet as if they’d been shod in tight sneakers.
No doubt about it, these are not contented cows. But then again, who would be if every time they went to take a drink, munch on some feed or just rub up against a pipe they were getting zapped by a little electrical tingle?
That’s exactly what Lemmenes thinks is happening, even though he can’t feel anything himself. Except maybe in the pocketbook. Dairy cows on his spread, 60 miles northwest of Milwaukee, average only about 30 pounds of milk apiece per day when they ought to be producing about 60.
“I’m just losing my shirt on this,” despaired Lemmenes, who claims that years of tiny, persistent shocks coming off everything from water cups to the barn stanchions have agitated his herd, shrunk milk yields, chopped $1 million off revenues and forced him into bankruptcy.
It is not so far-fetched a notion as it might sound to city slickers. More and more, dairy farmers are beginning to worry about the potential impact on their herds of a quirky yet only recently investigated phenomenon called “stray voltage.”
In essence, stray voltages are excess currents that can spill from many things--from perfectly functioning utility lines to faulty wiring. Usually packing less punch than a common household battery, they flow through grounding systems and onto metal structures and into the earth. Humans don’t even notice them.
But, for a variety of technical and biological reasons, stray voltage problems appear to be most acute in barnyard settings. Most affected seem to be cattle, whose natural resistance to electrical current is only one-tenth that of humans. Standing in their bare hoofs on the wet floors of barns or milking parlors doesn’t help.
Usually the effect is subtle, but not always. Veterinarian John Ryder said he knew of one farmer whose cows experienced problems only after their hoofs were trimmed. Apparently shorter hoofs meant less electrical resistance.
At the other extreme, Ryder, who studies stray voltage for the Wisconsin Agriculture Department, said he once saw eight cows leap simultaneously as they were being milked. “They were obviously getting hit with some very heavy jolts,” he explained.
Experts say stray voltage not only can distress cows but also indirectly stimulate udder irritations and other health problems. It also alters their behavior in much the same way that laboratory rats can be conditioned by electric shocks.
If, for example, a cow learns she’s going to get shocked when she drinks or eats, she’s not going to want to drink or eat as much and then she won’t produce as much milk. That’s of particular concern in Wisconsin, the Dairy State, where milk production is a $3-billion-a-year business to some 34,000 dairy farmers.
“About 30% of the farms are affected by it or could potentially have stray voltage,” said Dan Dasho, head of a 3-year-old state-sponsored stray voltage task force called the “SVAT Team.” “ . . . It can hurt your production and over a long period of time it can really hurt your financial status so you can’t farm any more.”
With livelihoods on the line, emotions can sometimes run high. In Wisconsin, a small but vocal group of stray voltage activists has sprung up in response to what they claim is foot-dragging on resolving the issue by state and utility officials. Several farmers have slapped utilities with lawsuits and won judgments ranging to more than $1 million.
A few farmers even contend voltage has killed cattle. Experts question the validity of such claims, and suggest that some critics are quick to blame stray voltage for herd problems that can be caused by a host of unrelated factors--including bad management by the farmers themselves.
If the controversy seems confused, that’s because it is. For a long time, stray voltage was sort of the chronic fatigue syndrome of agricultural ills. Farmers whose cows were plagued by it knew something was wrong, but couldn’t quite figure out what.
Researchers have known of the phenomenon for a long time, but only in the last decade have they come to realize its impact could be so widespread. Even then, engineers and agricultural officials were often slow to link stray voltage with milk production problems on many farms.
That skepticism enraged many farmers, but there was some justification for it. Symptoms brought on by stray voltage are virtually identical to cow behavior linked to a wide range of less mysterious, more mundane farm problems such as inadequate nutrition or poor milking practices.
More frustrating yet, there is no single cause for stray voltage, nor is there a sure-fire way to squelch it. The problem is different on every farm. Some have it bad, some just a little, and many not at all. It can come and go. The source can be traced to overhead utility lines or leaks from poorly insulated wiring and machinery in the barn itself. Ironically, some of the very safety systems required by electrical codes to prevent dangerous overloads can help channel stray voltage into a barn. Problems can persist when all electrical systems inside and outside a barn are working fine.
“This is deep, dark mysterious stuff to the average lay person and it’s even hard to explain to people who have an electrical background,” said Chuck Forster, a consulting engineer for a group of rural Wisconsin electrical cooperatives. “I can’t blame these people for being confused and concerned.”
Oddly, the problem is coming to prominence even though the typical cow is producing triple the milk she would have 30 years ago thanks to efficient, high-tech farming techniques. But those very improvements make it painfully--and expensively--obvious when something goes wrong.
Alan M. Lefcourt, editor of a soon to be released federal handbook on the subject, said the impact of stray voltage has clearly grown along with more demand on power systems to operate increasingly sophisticated milking systems and other machinery.
Just as significant, he added, are changes in the cow itself. Today’s cow never even sees a bull. Her calves are sired via artificial insemination using only genetically select sperm. Diets include a blend of special chemicals and nutrients.
On the downside, however, the modern cow has been rendered less resilient than Old Bossie. “When you have this finely tuned of an animal, any problem is going to have an impact,” said Lefcourt, a bio-medical engineer with the Agricultural Research Service of the U.S. Agriculture Department. “It makes them very susceptible to adverse conditions.”
Though experts say stray voltage may be a problem throughout the Farm Belt, Wisconsin is the only state so far with active, albeit small-scale, government efforts to combat it. Officials have deputized power companies to conduct much of the on-farm analysis of voltage problems, a fact which rankles some critics who want to see a major overhaul of utility systems.
“The problem is that the utility distribution systems are 30 to 50 years old and they have not been upgraded even though electrical use has gone up dramatically,” argued Brad Kolpin, a dairy farmer who was awarded $738,000 after he took his utility to court over stray voltage-related losses. The judgment was later overturned on a technicality.
Utility spokesmen, however, say overhauling systems would not necessarily correct problems and would drive up electric bills. “It’d be like killing a fly with a sledgehammer,” said Forster. “The answer is to get on the farms and fix the wiring.” Several power companies now pay for at least a portion of electrical upgrades on the farm.
Indeed, many farmers and utilities are working with each other to reduce stray voltage problems. Nevertheless, it can be a painstaking process.
Jan Lindemann manages a herd of about 70 cows on a farm near Ridgeway in southern Wisconsin. There used to be 90 cows, but so many became unproductive that they had to be sold for slaughter and many others won’t breed. When winter forces the herd off the pasture and into the barn, daily milk yields drop from about 58 pounds per cow to only 40.
Over the winter, the utility fiddled around with the power lines and it seemed to reduce stress on the cows for a few weeks but then it mysteriously returned, Lindemann said. At the suggestion of investigators, some wiring has been redone, metal restraining bars for the cows regrounded and a water heater fixed. Things are better, but not perfect.
“You’re talking $300 a day just in lost milk, much less all the vet bills and the other things that are much more expensive,” she said. “It’s a nice easy way to go bankrupt.”
Lemmenes already has. His story is a case history in the frustrations that can be caused by stray voltage--if indeed he has stray voltage problems at all. Meters detect some voltage in the barn, but at levels so low that experts insist cows couldn’t feel it. Still, he’s had several veterinarians and nutritionists out to examine his operation and no one can come up with another explanation as to why his cows seem out of sorts.
He’s spent $7,000 on an electronic grounding system designed to draw current away from the barn and even tried disconnecting his property from the the main utility lines and running everything off of generators. Improvements have been modest, and temporary.
Throttled by low milk prices, repair costs and lower production, Lemmenes has been falling behind in payments to the credit agency that holds the paper on the bankrupt farm that has been in his family for four generations. “It’s bad enough to where I think I’ll be here this spring, but I’m not sure,” he confessed.
