Trouble Rains Down on Swamped Dairies

The February rains have extracted a toll far from crumbling coastal hillsides: thousands of cows, heifers and calves dying in dairies deep in mud.

In the past three weeks, about 6,500 dead cattle--including 1,400 in just the last three days--have been removed from Chino-area dairies by the largest local animal disposal firm.

They are casualties of El Nino--dairy animals exhausted and finally succumbing to knee-high muck. Steve Stiles, whose company delivers the carcasses to rendering plants, says he’s never been busier.

Although dead cows--whose replacements cost $1,300 a head--are an immediate expense to dairy operators, of greater long-range concern are rain-bred infections that are causing an increasing drop statewide in milk production that may financially imperil small operations.

“I’m an optimist,” said Chino-area dairyman Harry Wiersema, “but I think there will be some dairymen who may lose their business.”

Wiersema was a Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputy for 26 years. “And I long for those days right now,” he said.

The recent rains have so punished this dairy valley--which produces about 25% of the state’s milk--that Gov. Pete Wilson on Thursday declared the Chino dairy lands a disaster area, opening the way for government relief.

The rain and resulting mud have killed animals at about triple the normal mortality rate, Stiles said. With about 300,000 cows in the valley, the loss of several thousand would not have a significant impact on the state’s overall milk production, even though it represents a direct cost of about $6 million to the local owners.

But milk production statewide is down about 5%--and slightly more in the Chino area--because of the stress on cows of having to endure the mud.

“A cow will stand as long as she can, and when she finally lays down, she can barely get up again,” lamented Richard Westra, a second-generation dairyman whose 800 milk cows are producing about 20% less milk than usual. “When she finally gets up, I have to get three or four men to help push her to the barn.”

In addition to the energy drain of plodding through mud, cows are debilitated just by lying in it, said Nyles Peterson, dairy advisor to UC Cooperative Extension in Riverside.

“The ground is cold, and it takes some of their body heat away,” he said. Compounding the problem, when the weakened cows lie down, it is amid wet manure that infects and inflames their udders, leading to mastitis. The milk of cows that are treated for that ailment with antibiotics must then be discarded. Other cows suffer from pneumonia and digestive problems.

The warming sun will offer good news and bad news. Although it will dry the corrals, the contaminated mud will cake on udders, exacerbating the infections. That is why, industry officials say, milk production will plummet further.

“What’s alarming to us is not necessarily the drop we’ve seen so far, but that the conditions out there are so very bad that we’ll have a lingering, long-term impact and production will be further impaired,” said Gary Korsmeier, general manager of California Milk Producers, a cooperative of 170 dairies.

Milk production statewide might eventually fall more than 15% from normal amounts, he predicted. “It’s not been this bad for a long time,” he said.

The general manager of a milk processing company in Central California agreed.

“The rains last year caused a bit of a drop too, but the cows came back relatively quickly. But what we’re seeing this year is a longer, slower downward movement in milk production,” said Richard Cotta of San Joaquin Valley Dairymen in Los Banos.

“Now, with the warming weather, we’ll see more bacterial growth, and it looks like this trend will continue,” he said. “How far down production will go is anyone’s guess.”

The repercussions of the rain will last for months, dairy owners say, although it is not yet known what effect, if any, they will have on prices at the supermarket.

Gene Koopman, who has 1,000 cows, said his production is down 20%, but the final toll is unknown.

Cows’ production peaks after they give birth and then declines. If weather stress reduces the peak rate to begin with, then later production will be even lower than normal, he said.

Like other dairy owners, Koopman is cutting his losses. He said he culled about 18 poorly producing cows from his herd this week, to be sent to the slaughterhouse for about $500 each, and he expects to cull another 20 to 25 next week. He estimated that 75% of those cows were affected by the rain.

If he doesn’t take a weakened cow to the slaughterhouse before it drops, then the dead animal can only be processed by a renderer for wax and soap.

Koopman worries too about whether cows will conceive in the muddy corrals. “Our breeding program is in jeopardy,” he said. “It’ll probably be less than half of normal. Next year, we’re going to wonder where all our calves are.”

Many newer dairies in the Central Valley have been able to avoid serious rain problems because their cows are kept under roofs and have dry bedding.

But the cows in this dairy preserve that straddles San Bernardino and Riverside counties live in older, outdoor corrals, and are fully exposed to the elements.

“In my 28 years, I’ve never seen so much rain runoff hit the dairies as we’ve seen this past week,” said Bob Feenstra, executive manager of the Milk Producers Council, which represents most of the 300 Chino-area dairies.

“We’ve never asked before for disaster designation, but we can’t take this,” he said of this year’s storms.

Assemblyman Fred Aguiar (R-Chino), whose family owned a dairy here for 22 years, said he expects that state disaster relief will help dairy owners bear the expense of replacing dead animals and clearing mud and manure from corrals.

The Chino Valley seemed to be hit harder than in past years with similarly heavy rains because as neighboring communities--including Ontario to the north--have developed, more storm runoff has headed downstream to the Prado Basin near Corona--and right through these lowlands.

Dairy owners say they can only wonder what next month will bring.

“We usually get pretty heavy rains in March,” said Peterson, the dairy advisor. “So we’re still bracing for the worst.”