Winter Storm Goliath hit the Texas dairy industry hard. Darren Turley, executive director of the Texas Association of Dairymen (TAD), said it will be felt well into the future, from a reduction in the state’s milk supply to dairy financial losses to the emotional impact on farmers of losing their animals.

“Like all agriculture, dairy producers always operate at the mercy of Mother Nature,” Turley said. “With Goliath, she dealt a particularly harsh and costly blow to the area’s dairy producers, from the death of thousands of livestock they spend so much time caring for to a loss of milk production both over the weekend and in the future.”

Turley estimates the region – which includes half of the state’s top 10 milk producing counties – is home to about 36 percent of the state’s dairy cows, or an estimated 142,800 cows. He estimates that the blizzard killed about 5 percent of mature dairy cows and an as-yet unknown number of calves and heifers. As producers are able to fully examine their herds, Turley estimates losses will continue to climb.

“The immediate challenge is how to handle these sudden, massive losses of animals,” Turley said. “The ordinary methods for disposal cannot handle the volume of deaths we are seeing from this storm. TAD 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.”

In addition, TAD is working with the Texas Governor’s Office, the Texas Department of Agriculture and other state and federal agencies to determine whether financial assistance is available for impacted dairy farmers.

During the storm, weather conditions and road closures both kept dairy employees, who normally milk the animals twice a day, and tanker trucks, which transport the milk from dairy to processor, from reaching farms. Not only were hundreds of loads of milk ready for processing wasted, but, on some farms, cows went almost two days without being milked, Turley said.