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The Rural Voice, 1982-03, Page 14Sick cows got you baffled? by Bev Brown Any livestock producer who is ex- periencing strange health problems with his animals which are difficult, if not impossible, to cure or explain should find out if stray voltage is running through his barns. Transient hydro, also known as stray voltage or tingle voltage, is defined as an intermittent, low-level electrical current flowing through a building and through any conductor in that building. It occurs when the flow of voltage on the neutral wire is reversed and then grounds through your equipment -- pipelines, waterbowls. stabling, etc. The effect of this stray voltage can be catastrophic, as Mel Greig, a dairy farmer at R.R. 1 Gorrie explains. "We have had problems in our dairy barn for five years and maybe more. Uneven milkout, hard quarters, mastitis, Toss of milk and eventually loss of cows, which we shipped because we thought their problems were incurable. Then abortions struck -- twelve in all -- plus swollen and running hocks. "Despite intensive investigation by our local veterinarians, provincial dairy spe- cialists and the University of Guelph. no one was able to get to the bottom of our problems. Everything was checked out from feed to water, with nothing to explain the various symptoms. Our milk pro- duction dropped to the point where I had to buy extra cows in order to fulfill our quota. Our BCA count dropped sixteen points. The cows dried up three to five months before freshening. Calves and heifers were stunted in their growth." By the fall of 1981 Greig felt that he was coming to the end of his farming career. Discouraged, but determined, he con- tinued to read everything he could find on problems similar to his own. Then he came across three different articles on transient hydro and each one described symptoms he had seen in his own cows. He bought a volt meter and found measurable voltage when the leads were attached to the bulk milk tank and grounded in the milkhouse drain. This voltage varied at different times of the day. "At this point I thought I had found the cause of all our troubles," Greig explained "A call to Ontario Hydro brought quick PG. 12 THE RURAL VOICE/MARCH 1982 Mel Greig, dairy farmer at R.R. 1. Gorrie, bought his own Micronta Digital Multi -meter so he could keep checking the voltage levels in his barn. results. The Hydro inspectors came out to the farm and checked all electrical wiring and motors to make sure they were properly installed. Their volt meter still showed voltage coming through the barn. so they cut the neutral wire and grounded the ends separately. "That was in December, 1981 and within one month our cows increased their production ten pounds per cow per day." Greig said with delight. "The cows drank more water, ate more feed and cleaned up their mangers. And suddenly we started to see heat signs we had never seen in our years of farming. 1 can list sixteen problems we had been experiencing and most of these have vanished." The Greigs are determined to publicize their story with the hope that this might help other livestock producers who are having similar problems with their animals. "This has cost me thousands of dollars in the past years," Greig says, "and with these times of troubles and hardships I would not want to see a farmer put out of business because of transient hydro. It is one problem which will not go away by itself. "I have to thank Dr. Alex Strong and the staff at the Wingham Vet Clinic and ,Dr. Barbara Cameron who previously was at Wingham for establishing with me the desire to strive for maximum production and animal health. Without these goals I would have given up or been forced out of business through low production." Transient voltage is not a new problem. It was investigated in New Zealand in the early 1960s and later in the United States. although data on the significance of this problem in North America is lacking. An article entitled "A Review of the Problems Associated with Stray Voltage in Dairy Herds" by J. Zdrojewski. D.V.M. and J. Davidson. D.V.M. was published in the November 1981 issue of The Bovine Practitioner. The authors explain why the cow is far more sensitive to low voltage currents than dairymen and will be seriously affected by one to two volts -- which will not even be felt by a person. The cow is heavier than the human and has four bare feet on the ground.