18,000 Cows killed in an explosion

Norman_Conquest

Norman_Conquest

Well-known member
Just reading about an explosion in Texas which killed 18,000 cows and in the article it says between 2018 and 2021, nearly 3 million farm animals died in fire related incidents, with 1.76m chickens dying in that time period.

Now I know these facilities are huge but that is a lot of animals that have suffered a terrible death.

www.bbc.co.uk

Texas dairy farm explosion kills 18,000 cows

Animal welfare activists say the incident is "by far" the deadliest barn fire in recent memory.
www.bbc.co.uk
 
18,000 👀 whilst i appreciate the picture is taken from some distance away, for that many to die, they must have been crammed together, surely? I know farming standards in the states leave a lot to be desired, but goodness me this seems beyond cruel even prior to the explosion, simply inhumane even for them.
 
Norman_Conquest said:
Just reading about an explosion in Texas which killed 18,000 cows and in the article it says between 2018 and 2021, nearly 3 million farm animals died in fire related incidents, with 1.76m chickens dying in that time period.

Now I know these facilities are huge but that is a lot of animals that have suffered a terrible death.

www.bbc.co.uk

Texas dairy farm explosion kills 18,000 cows

Animal welfare activists say the incident is "by far" the deadliest barn fire in recent memory.
www.bbc.co.uk
Click to expand...

Isn't that what would happen to them anyway regardless of the fire?
 
coluka said:
18,000 👀 whilst i appreciate the picture is taken from some distance away, for that many to die, they must have been crammed together, surely? I know farming standards in the states leave a lot to be desired, but goodness me this seems beyond cruel even prior to the explosion, simply inhumane even for them.
Click to expand...
The article says they were in an area awaiting milking so I guess it was not permanent but I struggle to get my head round the size of operation that has that many cows in one location.
 
There's some enormous ranches out there. We spent a night in Kingsville, named after the King Ranch, the ranch has over 30,000 cattle spread over an enormous area. They're beef cattle so well scattered about, 18,000 in a small area is an incredible number.
 
30k in the Riverside.. appreciate it's cows, & they are much bigger.. but not as big a space needed as maybe thought..
 
Looking on Google maps the big building on the farm is about 700m long and 200m wide which is 140,000 square meters or 14 hectares or 35 acres. A cow takes up about 1 square meter which means if all 18,000 were in this barn in some sort of queue (and there were no other structures in the building) then there would be about 7.8 square metres per cow.

That's far bigger than the Riverside. It's about 7 football pitches long and 3 wide. Massive building.

With people if there was a fire alarm then everyone would walk out but cows wouldn't. They'd just stand in the queue until it was too late.
 
Norman_Conquest said:
Just reading about an explosion in Texas which killed 18,000 cows and in the article it says between 2018 and 2021, nearly 3 million farm animals died in fire related incidents, with 1.76m chickens dying in that time period.

Now I know these facilities are huge but that is a lot of animals that have suffered a terrible death.

www.bbc.co.uk

Texas dairy farm explosion kills 18,000 cows

Animal welfare activists say the incident is "by far" the deadliest barn fire in recent memory.
www.bbc.co.uk
Click to expand...

They suffered a terrible life

Too late to think about them now
 
sadgit said:
Why I stopped eating meat decades ago. Shocking how we treat animals. Crammed in
Click to expand...
Last couple of months or so we've moved onto eating plant based meals most days. Not planned but we tried a few different meal kit delivery companies and the best ones were two plant based ones so we've stuck with them. Have to say though, the way things are going with food and animal welfare standards outside of the EU it seems a very sensible decision to reduce meat consumption.
 
The Ruthsayer said:
Burned alive? Probably died of toxic smoke inhalation. Preferable to a bolt through the brain that doesn’t stun as it should, so the animals are flayed alive.
Still happens on slaughterhouses where the throats aren’t slit.
Click to expand...
Maybe, maybe not, it depends on where the fire started relative to the animals, how much ventiliation there was etc.
None of that's really the point though, the animals are being kept in cramped and dangerous conditions. None of that is prefereable to the way the way these places should be operating
 
sherlock1969 said:
Always buy organic milk, then you know it's not coming from cows kept in those conditions.
Click to expand...
British farming standards are way higher than in the US, so whatever you buy over here, the cows producing it wont have been kept in those conditions.

A lot of american beef is just raise on concrete in pens, its shocking and thats before you get into the growth hormones they pump into their beef.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top