Small farm with mechanized milking equipment

Life, Death; the Struggles on a Farm

Not all stories have a happy ending, and as everywhere else, life on a farm is a cycle of birth and death, and there is nothing more heartrending than to see someone lose the animals he’s cared for so much and for so many years in a period of only a few hours. For many, their dairy herd is what has kept them alive, and actually thriving. Their daily life is consumed by the care for their animals. At five am it’s time to milk them, often by hand, then to feed them and bathe them. The milk is carried in large 30 liter tanks to the local cooperative on the backs of motorcycles, bicycles or a regional pick-up truck. It really is a sight to see several hundred motorcycles and bicycles converging on the delivery area of the cooperative at 7 am. It’s like a market, and it’s a chance to catch up on some of the latest gossip, but most farmers hurry back home to start gathering the grass and the corn they’ll need for their animals in the afternoon, leaving the gossip and catching up for the next payday and market day. Others make their way to the rice fields to look after their food staple for the coming year.

Preparing feed concentrate

Along with the introduction of dairy farming to the region, processed feeds or feed concentrate also arrived, and it is a necessary supplement for animals fed mostly on low-quality grass, straw or too-young corn. Often this concentrate in Thailand would consist of soybeans, cottonseed, corn, fishmeal, rice bran, and molasses, in addition to some other vitamins and minerals. The local feed mills compete for the custom of the nearly 4,000 farmers, and each tries to provide a service that betters the others in terms of cost and quality, but by far and away the best service offered is that by the cooperative feed store. Here farmers pick up their dairy concentrate and put it on the bill, with payment for goods and services deducted from their next payment for the milk their cows have produced. Of course, not all farmers make use of the feed mill, preferring to get their concentrate elsewhere.

Feeding cows with Napier grass

Sunday Peace Shattered

There is a suddenly jangle outside my front door on a quiet Sunday afternoon. One of my coworkers is standing there, nearly in tears. This morning two cows were found dead in their stalls. The silence and peace of the day is shattered. Two dead cows, that’s a fortune. There’s more. Three others are sick and weakening. We make our way to the farm and there are his father and brother, frantically trying to get the cows to drink water. The veterinarian has been called and is on her way. We stand by, not knowing what to do. The other two cows are standing by restlessly, not knowing what has happened to the other members of their herd. All they know that two are gone, and three are ill. We ask about the feed they were fed. All the same as before, corn, grass and concentrate. All from the same sources as before. There is no bloating, the animals haven’t been over eating, and there is some feed left in the trough. The three sick animals slowly worsen, foam now forming around their mouths, and their breathing becomes shallow. The other two members of the herd are also beginning to show signs of listlessness. Suddenly one of the three animals lets out a loud bellow and starts to writhe, then slowly succumbs. Her eyes turn up in her head, and she’s dead. We are left speechless. The veterinarian arrives and goes through the same motions as us, checking the sick animals, then asking about the feeding regime. There is nothing that seems to work. The animals have a temperature, but their stomachs are working, and the manure still seems alright, but something is killing the animals.

The farmer is now sitting somewhere in a corner, his eyes misting over. Three animals dead, and two seriously ill, while the remaining two seem to be coming down with the same thing, but what? By evening, two more animals are dead, and one is in a serious condition. By morning, 6 of the herd of 7 are dead, while the one remaining animal seems to be holding steady. Nothing could be done to save the others. Everything was tried. The consensus was poisoning, but from what, from where?

Early morning milk delivery at the cooperative

The Long Road to Recovery

Two days later, the remaining animal is feeling better and eating normally again, and there is a report of another farm experiencing the same problem with 2 cows dead and three ill. In the period of one short day, two farmers have been ruined, their futures made bleak, and no cause has been found. One month after the event, the concentrate feed and the bags in which it had been delivered had finally been examined by a laboratory at a university in Bangkok, and traces of rat poison were found mixed in with the feed, sufficient to kill the animals. Where the poison had come from and how it had been mixed into the feed remained a mystery, but what was obvious was that someone had been careless, and that carelessness caused massive financial harm. It was nearly a year before my coworker could rebuild his herd, and life remained a struggle for several more years after this event.