News

West Texas dairies buried by blizzard

The blizzard that buried dairy farms in eastern New Mexico last weekend did similar damage in west Texas. Texas Association of Dairymen executive director Darren Turley says the affected area is home to about 143,000 dairy cows and five of the state’s top-ten milk producing counties.

Turley estimates the blizzard killed about five percent of the dairy cows in the area and an unknown number of calves. He says the immediate challenge is how to handle the sudden, massive losses of animals.  “The ordinary methods for disposal cannot handle the volume of deaths we are seeing from this storm. The Texas Association of Dairymen is working with the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality and other agencies to determine how the animals can be disposed of both quickly and safely.”

Similar to the situation in New Mexico, a number of cows in Texas were not milked for two days and a lot of milk was dumped because milk trucks could not get through.

Turley says his organization is working with the Texas Department of Agriculture, the Governor’s Office and other state and federal agencies to assess the losses and determine whether financial assistance is available.