Stray voltage , and dead cows.

[Bruce from Can.]

I went to a dairy meeting last night.Three good dairymen related to us how over the last few years they have been having problems in the cow herds, and they have had sudden increase in cows going down "limp as a wet rag" . And die shortly there after. Vet autopsy show no real cause for these cows to die. One farmer with a older tie barn has lost 11 cows in this fashion since March. Another young farmer, who's faimly had milked in a tie stall barn for the past 50 years, move to a recently empty , free stall barn,around 5 years old.In the past 15 months this man told us they have had 18 dead cows.This young guy is coming to the end of his options as his losses grow , so does his dept. No one knows for sure if the previous owners of this farm may of been facing the same trouble, and just gave up. Other farmers who think stray voltage could be a problem on there farms too, all seem to have newer free stall barns. You could sure feel their helpless desperation in dealing with our public utility Ontario Hydro , as they claim it is not a Ontario Hydro caused problem.
Ontario Hydro is owned by the Ontario government, and they are now not allowing farmers to add filters or blockers on their panels to prevent voltage spikes. Where this will end, no one knows. Why it has suddenly occurred , many theories, but no proof or smoking gun. Only dead cows and desperate farmers looking for answers.My farm has not suffered any of this, but It is hard to listen to these fellas without thinking , am I going to be next? Bruce

 

[Donald Lehman]

Always something isn't it? My son has been doing well since he started up, but is well aware that no matter how good things seem to be going, a farmer is only one unforeseen disaster away from complete ruin, and management ability has very little to do with that.

 

[kevinecwi]

I had a neighbor two miles down the road from me fight the power company for years about stray voltage. Went to court, he kept track of all lost milk production, cost of burying a ground loop around the farm buildings, he even built a freestall barn away from the original stanchion barn, also installed his own generator to go off grid. Good farmer but this ordeal aged him many years. In the end he won in court. Turns out where the line goes underground from the pole there must have been a bad splice made that was leaking current. I'm talking the pole on the roadside so not the landowners responsibilty. Power company was too stubburn to check this connection. He quit dairying about twenty years ago.

 

[JMS/.MN]

Electrical utilities are infamous for denying stray voltage issues. They say a few volts are no problem, which simply isn"t true. You also need a knowledgeable electrician with stray voltage experience. In our tie stall barn I noticed cows would "ground" themselves by holding their muzzle to the concrete stall curb when certain equipment was turned on. We paid $800 for an isolation transformer, which helped with the problem.

 

[RayP(MI)]

A few years back, there was a similar fracas in this area with Consumers Energy. Turned out to be poor grounding on the power company's part. But sure was a fight to get things right.

 

[paul]

Was it the late 80s or 90s when this became a very big deal in my area of southern MN? Took a long time to resolve, lot of class action type stuff, seems the utilities had unbalanced loads on their lines and didnt have something set up right. And that was made much worse by poor grounding of stuff at the cow yard by the individuals. Bit of blame on both sides.

Now a days anything metal, including rebar in the concrete, needs über grounding and multiple clamps to bleed out any possible stray voltage.

And the utilities got their stuff sorted out from the high costs of the lawsuits.

I'm sure you could find some precedence from all that back when. I was not around dairy myself so only read the headlines at the time, but it was a big deal.

Paul

 

[Married2Allis]

Livestock watering sources can transfer this voltage. Is there a power sub-station nearby his farm I wonder?

 

[ss55]

The location of the downed animal can indicate where to look for problems. With hogs, electric heaters under frost-free waterers can go bad enough to shock or electrocute animals. Wiring to the heaters can also go bad or be damaged by livestock. Lightning strikes can follow overhead wires between farm buildings and kill animals near the blown open fuse boxes.

 

[Janicholson]

From observation in Canada there are many Utilities that supply service with one wire on the pole. The only way that works is to use mother nature (earth) as a ground/return. I cannot imagine this not having stray voltage nearly everywhere. Jim

 

[rrlund]

It was,and maybe still is,a problem in Michigan,but I've never heard of any actual dead cows from it. The big problem is that when there's a spike,they'll kick the milkers off. The most extreme problem I've heard of is that they won't drink.

All that said,I had trouble with it. It was 2.5 to 3 volts. I know that doesn't sound like much,but to a cow standing on wet concrete with bare feet,it's enough. The only time I could feel it myself was if I had a crack in a finger or something. Consumers Energy put a split neutral on my transformer so I wasn't catching stray voltage from anybody else's water heater or whatever,up and down the line.

I heard quite an earful from one guy at a meeting one time about the trouble he was having. He had a parlor and free stalls. He never had a problem until he put in a new parlor,then the trouble started. No problem in the old one,but lots of trouble in the new one. He said everything would be going along OK,then all at once the cows would kick the milkers off. The devil of it was,he was still running off the same service off the pole.

 

[dr sportster]

Got any young electrical engineers who want to make a name for themselves? Ground everthing back to the main service.

 

[UAFitter]

I've been reading about this stray voltage stuff for several years now, and while I would be the first to say that the utilities aren't trustworthy, I think there's more than a little fantasy going on here. How come it's always a dairy barn that has stray voltage issues, never hogs or cattle or horses or the herdsman's house? One guy has had 11 cows die and another has had 18, and none of the human beings involved has had so much as a tingle? Not while taking a bath, or washing hands, or touching a gate, or anything else, but there's enough to kill a 1700 pound cow? I think I'll remain a skeptic on this one. I'd venture to say that if it's electrical, it has more to do with something broken, miswired, or cobbled together than it does with utility malfeasance, and that it's very likely either nutrition or disease that's killing the cows, not electricity.

 

[Geo-TH,In]

I lost the ground wire in the country. It took the rural electric 2 years to put it back up. I didn't get a shock when I drained raidator hose. Don't want to think how that would hurt.

 

[Billy Shafer]

Stray voltage is real. I have felt it.I was doing an install of a generator. At a new tower site. Went to open the housing door and got put on my knees. Only power to the place was on the pole to the building. Site boss said I was full of it. Until he touched the housing. He went down also. Only time I have ever seen it in forty years of field service.It is rare but it does happen.

 

[farmerwithmutt]

Went to a meeting on stray voltage and the speaker talked about tracing voltage back to a tree in the pasture also found manure pits generating . One farmer never had a problem untill he replaced a glass receiver jar somebody talked him into a metal one then he had stray voltage his father in law was the county ag agent so he put in a real expensive grounding system. My uncle was an electrician his stray voltage meter was check and see who had a small cut and stick it into the water on a cattle water. Pigs are less likely to get hit by stray voltage because of there feet that's why it's harder to train them to a hot wire but they learn quickly

 

[teddy52food]

Have you ever been to a place with stray voltage?

 

[fixerupper]

Yes stray voltage is real. I had a brand new bad thermostat leaking a fraction of a volt in a hog water. The water was grounded with a copper clad rod like it was supposed to and I couldn't feel a thing but the hogs would touch it with their noses and flinch. It took me awhile to find the thermostat was the problem. Animals with four bare feet on the ground can feel a fraction of a volt, something we humans would never feel.

 

[Bob N.Y.]

Cows are much more sensitive to electricity than we are.

 

[old-9]

I went on a service call " kids in pool being shocked" . I put one lead in the water and other to ground, read 60 +or - volts. Spent a lot of time searching for the problem, ended up turning breakers off one at a time then the Main breaker. With all power off and still stray voltage, called power company. They showed up quick, seems liability gets action. The problem was a bad underground cable at 7200 volts. Was replaced right away!
I also had the job of wireing a swimming pool, pump, heater, electric covers, and lights. I have never bonded (grounded) so many things in such a small area.
I think if I were building a milking parlor, I would make sure every metal object anywhere close was bonded (grounded) this would include rebar, overkill maybe yes maybe not. What does a cow cost?
joe, way retired sparkey

 

[mtny]

Sister and brother in law milk about 50 cows in a tie stall barn they had built 15 years ago . 8 years ago or so they started having breeding and weight loss issues. Definitely detecting stray voltage but not the source . I was there when they completely disconnected power and still got readings. Last thing they have tried is pulling the extensive grounding system they installed to stop it . Seems to have helped , also have switched fence system grounds.

 

[UAFitter]

I'm not suggesting that cattle aren't sensitive to voltage. What I am saying is every dairy farmer who thinks his cows aren't living long enough, or aren't giving enough milk, or have a high cell count, wants to blame it on the power company, not his least-cost ration, or his p-poor management, or his junk equipment, or his "immigrant" help, or any of a host of other things. I work around high voltage every day. I'm well aware that it's entirely possible to have potential to ground, and for that potential to be potentially lethal. If you told me that there were five dead cows next to a waterer with a skun wire, with the water hot to ground, I'd say yup, electricity killed them. If you tell me that there are fifteen cows dead from electricity, but you can't find a source, I'm saying you're looking for zebras, not horses.

 

[chuck from neb]

stray voltage is real ..lost a couple cows years ago from wiring exposed under ground comng to the waterer. we use waterers now that dont need heating elements

 

[Bruce from Can.]

Sorry friend , but I am afraid you don't know spit. These farmers I was speaking of have been in the dairy all of their lives, and never , never seen any thing like this happen on their farms before. Your BS story about Zebras is insulting. Oh and by the way , the world isn't flat either !

 

[UAFitter]

I meant no insult. "Look for horses first, then zebras" is a saying common in the medical profession, and serves as a reminder to look for the obvious first, then the unlikely. I think that what we have here may be a difference of definition. I absolutely agree that electrical issues can be bad for livestock health, and that poor grounding can cause a whole host of issues. However, here in NW Illinois, the stray voltage crowd wants to talk about minuscule voltages, and corresponding minuscule amperages, as the root cause of every unexplained problem in their herds. That's a different thing than a waterer carrying line voltage or a fan cord with worn-through insulation. It's a very convenient way to put blame on an entity with deep pockets, and doing so puts the power companies in the position of having to prove a negative, always a difficult task. If your friends have lost a whole whack of cows without explanation, I'd say it's probably time for some serious diagnostic work, not grasping at straws.

 

[JD Seller]

Bruce my next door neighbor had stray voltage trouble for almost five years. It would be between 3 and 15 volts. His cows would not come in his parlor at times. He had severe spikes of mastitis. He rewired the parlor and installed filters and ground loops and still he had low voltage. The electric company came out and work with him on it and they were stumped too. They unhooked the transformer at the pole and there was still stray voltage. About 4 and half years of fighting this really aged this fellow. HE had one of the top herds around. Good care and HIGH production numbers. It really bothered him. He even sent his top cows to his brothers farm to get them away form the issue.

Finally they replaced the cross country power line poles and transmission transformers. His stray voltage went away. They found a bad ground on a transmission transformer 1 1/2 miles away from his parlor. Two other farms between him and the transformer did not have the voltage. No one could ever figure that out.

Bruce I sure would not let the government block me protecting my system from their voltage uses. I would go to my own supply before I would allow that.

I have a bin site that the electric company wanted $15K to run the electric too. I bought a use military generator for $4500. When you figure the lack of a minimum bill when there is zero electric need, the generated electric costs me HALF what the public power would be with the installation cost.

 

[hrRoss]

had stray voltage bout 10 yrs ago. kids would get shock off the water faucet in milk house. didnt believe the till i got it myself. called power co and sent out farm guy. finally traced it back to the ground wire on the pole along the road not making connection. their pole. also farmers are usually wearing rubber boots so not as prone to feeling the shock. i think we were running 1-2 volts. the farm guy grounded all the waterers and anything else first trying to solve the problem, but finally got the highline crew out to solve problem. didnt lose any cows or even close

 

[TVB]

Ask your utility to install a neutral isolator at the transformer. I am a lineman in the Pacific NW, we install these at dairy farms and it seems to help solve the problem.

 

[Bruce from Can.]

Two of these farmers have meters on their panel that take readings of power spikes , high and low for a 24 hour period. there can be 10 volts some days , with spike up to 30 , is what they told us. And like you said JD mastitis spike and high SCC are a huge problem for all of these dairymen. To have 25 cows out of 150 come down with mastitis one morning when they where all fine the day before is just not normal. One chap had 13 cows checked safe in calf in July , rechecked same cows first of September ,only 3 in calf now. This is just wild, and is becoming a animal cruelty issue. Maybe the Animal welfare fanatics will take up the charge.

 

[sms]

Some years ago my brother called and said he would get shocks when he touched the plumbing in his basement. I went with a meter and measured 70 volts from sink faucet to floor, voltage was highest on side toward well. Well casing to the lawn 120 volts(my nephew was small, good thing he didn't touch that casing). Turns out well driller installed a 2 wire pump, did not tape wire often enough so torque rubbed insulation off one wire, casing not grounded so power was going back to panel ground, and would not kick breaker. Well driller had run a cable to the well with a ground, after we fixed wire to the pump I grounded the casing so if anything happened again it would kick the breaker.

 

[RodinNS]

We had some trouble with stray voltage in the last year or so that we milked... It was never as acute as you describe but it was detectable. It could be measured at 2-3v potential between the neck rail and the floor. Odd times you'd get a tingle depending on what you touched and whether or not you had wet feet at the time. Looking back on it now we always had a lot of cows that would stand in the gutter or hold their noses to the curb for periods of time... breeding problems, etc. In our case the voltage was still there with the mains turned off. The only time it went away was during a power outage... My belief is that it was coming in on the neutral. For all we know it could have been a bad insulator 5 miles down the road. When we had NSP out to investigate... their response was that there was no problem. 2v was 'normal' and not significant. From what I have read... it is fairly significant to a cow. Anyone that thinks it doesn't matter ought to stand barefoot on a concrete floor in a puddle of water, then grab the bulk tank. They damn well will find it significant then!
I hope you never have a problem with stray voltage because the utility will DENY DENY DENY and it will be upon you to find a highly qualified electrician that first of all knows anything about the concept and secondly will fight for you. It's going to cost money and a LOT of it.
If you were starting new the easiest thing would be to just install voltage plains to bond the whole building and floor together so everything is at the same potential... and that should in theory avoid the current flow even though the problem is still there...

Rod