It’s a disaster that expresses all the gigantism of the North American breeding model. An explosion and subsequent fire at a dairy barn in Dimmitt, Texas (USA) killed around 18,000 cows and seriously injured one employee. The magnitude and consequences of this event, which unfolded on the evening of 10 Texas history”.
“The origin of the fire is being investigated and we want to know what caused it,” the commissioner said. Lessons will be learned and this fire will have repercussions for the region and the industry itself. According to Castro County Sheriff Sal Rivera, interviewed by CBS, a manure extraction system could have “overheated” and methane present in the building “ignited and then spread with explosion and fire.”
The employee who was trapped in the building that evening was rescued by the fire brigade and flown to the hospital, where she was still in intensive care at the weekend. If the exact number of cattle killed is not known at this time, the sheriff assures that the tally is around 18,000 cows. “Some have survived, he told NewsChannel 10, but they are likely injured so badly that they will need to be euthanized. »
” A tragedy “
The presence of 18,000 cattle on a single dairy farm is surprising in France, where the sector remains a family model with an average of 66 cows per dairy farm and whose few larger farms have between 400 and 650 cows. Even by North American standards, this is a sizeable herd. “In the United States, there are three classifications of factory farms based on the number of animals,” explains Julia Johnson, director of agriculture and nutrition for Compassion in World Farming USA. Farms are classified as large from 700 dairy cows, but we know that farms with more than 10,000 dairy cows are not uncommon and mega-dairy farms are not only bad for the environment and human health, but also for the welfare of the animals: it is impossible to take care of every animal in such environments. »
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