Rules and Guidelines
Want to participate in the discussions? Please read our Community Rules and Guidelines. Need some help? Visit Support and Answers.

  • State Not Answered
  • Locked Locked
  • Replies 45 replies
  • Subscribers 32 subscribers
  • Views 4011 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Options
You may also be interested in
This discussion has been locked.
You can no longer post new replies to this discussion. If you have a question you can start a new discussion

Cattle deaths

lyledunn
Some 10 prize bullocks died in quick succession whilst housed over winter in a cattle shed. The government vet was unable to reach a conclusion on cause but apparently does not discount electric shock as an indirect cause. 

The shed comprises steel columns and trusses with corrugated iron sheeting over. The floor comprises re-Inforced concrete slats over the slurry tank. The pens have steel barriers supported by steel posts all of which are heavily corroded but still making contact with other albeit fortuitously.

The earthing system is TT with the shed steelwork on its own providing a substantially low impedance of 5 ohms using a loop tester. A 100mA RCD protects the rather ropey lighting circuits.defccf32df3c757507a0db6ad0a35f87-huge-a5af3537-8eae-4a3c-9126-68fa60b61ac7.jpg

whilst the floor could be wet, I can’t conceive how a voltage difference could be established even if the steelwork was at 230v

Parents
  • 0
    The farmer has himself convinced that it is an electrical issue as the fatalities stopped when the supply to the building was disconnected. However, that may be nothing other than coincidence. You can see that the roof is deliberately discontinuous and the sides open and thus the floor could be very wet with water perhaps streaming to the outside. Actually, the pens in which the cattle died have rubber mats fitted over the slats. If the steelwork was made live along with a faulty RCD and a wet floor spilling to the outside then perhaps voltage gradients although small may have been enough to agitate the cattle. They do play really hard and have been known to severely injure each other. I do rather think that the methane possibility might be a better bet.
Reply
  • 0
    The farmer has himself convinced that it is an electrical issue as the fatalities stopped when the supply to the building was disconnected. However, that may be nothing other than coincidence. You can see that the roof is deliberately discontinuous and the sides open and thus the floor could be very wet with water perhaps streaming to the outside. Actually, the pens in which the cattle died have rubber mats fitted over the slats. If the steelwork was made live along with a faulty RCD and a wet floor spilling to the outside then perhaps voltage gradients although small may have been enough to agitate the cattle. They do play really hard and have been known to severely injure each other. I do rather think that the methane possibility might be a better bet.
Children
No Data

Community Rules & Guidelines