Aerial Image of a flooded calf operation in the Central Valley
Dairy farmers located in the San Joaquin Valley are currently facing the aftermath of significant flooding. The recent storms have resulted in extensive inundation of Tulare County, with many areas, including Alpaugh, Allensworth, Porterville, and Cutler, being placed under evacuation orders. Anja Raudabaugh, the CEO of Western United Dairies, stated that evacuating the livestock from the affected regions has been challenging.
“Not everyone in California is aware of the situational crisis that’s happening in Tulare, now spreading into Kings County,” said Raudabaugh. “Our members have been underwater. We’ve had to move almost 100,000 cows at this point in emergency evacuation…”
Dairymen encounter a multitude of logistical challenges when relocating their herd, ranging from finding suitable and open milk barns, breaking in cows to a new milk barn if they are unfamiliar with the setup, and addressing any health-related issues that may have arisen from extended periods of time the cows had gone unmilked. On top of that, dairymen must also incur the unexpected costs from hiring haulers to remove their herd and making sure that the haulers can get into their facility despite the flooding. These are just a few of the potential obstacles dairymen have had to navigate during this time.
Another challenging issue Dairymen in the Central Valley also face is significant damage to their current stockpile of feed, but also to feed crops for the future.
“We’ve probably lost the entire year’s wheat crop in the south valley which really sucks because we were just coming off some pretty short feed years with the drought. Then a lot of the bagged silage and replacement hay has been lost as well,” Raudabaugh explained. “So, trying to find enough feed as these cows are relocated has been a huge challenge.”
