The Moos Room™

00;00;12;29 - 00;00;20;08
Emily
Welcome, everybody, to the newsroom. Emily and Brad here today reunited once again.

00;00;20;11 - 00;00;29;28
Brad
Exactly. We're back. Everybody probably gets sick of listening to Brad rant about random topics, but that's okay. It's always good to have and see Emily again.

00;00;30;00 - 00;00;39;00
Emily
Yes, I know, I did, recently get a message from a listener slash friend who was like, where are you? Why is it this Brad on this episode? Exactly.

00;00;39;03 - 00;00;45;29
Brad
Exactly. He she messaged me too and said, is it just you now or. What's going on?

00;00;46;01 - 00;00;49;25
Emily
Love that. We're talking about the same person and we know it.

00;00;49;27 - 00;00;53;00
Brad
Exactly. And I'm sure he'll be listening so.

00;00;53;00 - 00;00;54;10
Emily
And he'll know we're talking about.

00;00;54;16 - 00;00;55;07
Brad
You know, who you.

00;00;55;07 - 00;01;21;10
Emily
Are. Yeah. We look forward to hearing from you again. All right, well, you know, again, I am back. We're kind of post holidays. That's why, of course, our schedules were crazy once again. But, yeah, we thought we would talk today about another safety topic. And this is one that, you know, I talk about it a lot of different times of year.

00;01;21;11 - 00;01;51;21
Emily
We don't always associate it with the winter time. But that is fire prevention and in particular barn fires. So according to the National Fire Protection Association, you know, the leading cause of barn fires is heating equipment and electrical issues, and they peak in the month of January. So, you know, we're in January now, kind of, you know, in the in the midst of winter.

00;01;51;28 - 00;02;16;05
Emily
And that is when we see, again, we're talking in particular about barn fires today. So I think we can probably all think of somebody we know or story that we know, about a barn fire. There was, you know, a barn fire of a Minnesota dairy last winter. You know, that was, luckily nobody was hurt, but that was a pretty big deal.

00;02;16;05 - 00;02;37;24
Emily
And and I think a lot of people remember that one. So we thought we'd spend some time talking about it today. Because I think it's really relevant. And I know Bradley has had some experiences, with, with potential barn fires, with preventing barn fires. So we're going to spend some time talking about that today.

00;02;37;26 - 00;03;01;28
Brad
Yes. We always have stories, and we've always heard they're they're always the horror stories because they are catastrophic from an animal perspective or buildings, you name it. So I think that's an important part. And like Emily said, we all have stories and we all hear those. And yes, we have our own stories here, even at our our research center.

00;03;02;00 - 00;03;18;06
Brad
And some of it is electrical and some is feed related. So there's a lot of different things that go around with that. And I might have some suggestions on a few of the electrical aspects that we've seen in our dairy as well.

00;03;18;09 - 00;03;47;16
Emily
Yes. Excellent. And so yeah, like I said, and Bradley, you just said it too, with a lot of barn fires. You know, the most common cause of barn fires, like I said, is, is related to like, electrical heating issues. So it's typically, you know, wires that are really outdated or, you know, haven't been replaced or we've maybe, done some self electrician work.

00;03;47;19 - 00;04;15;07
Emily
And it's maybe not fully up to code. Right. And so that's how a lot of these things happen. I know just a few months ago, I was actually talking to a farmer that had a barn fire. And I asked, did you ever find out what the cause was? And they said, yeah, it was just like some bad wiring from a light switch that, you know, hadn't been looked at or replaced since the barn was originally built.

00;04;15;10 - 00;04;39;23
Emily
So it was, you know, something that seems really simple. Right. And that we maybe it can be easy to ignore those things, right? Like, oh, yeah, I should have the electrician out to look at the wiring, but I have all these other things to do instead, you know. So, so that's a big piece of it. Also, you know, Brad said too, it may be related to feed.

00;04;39;25 - 00;05;03;13
Emily
You know, we do see fires. That involve hay and straw, you know, those types of things combusting. And, you know, there's just a lot of things that can happen. And I know that Bradley does have some experience, with this. I know Morris, has some experience with this. So, Bradley, do you maybe want to talk a little bit about what?

00;05;03;13 - 00;05;10;06
Emily
What happened, kind of how it happened and what the the resolution was.

00;05;10;08 - 00;05;33;29
Brad
Sure. Well, the biggest thing was we had an old. It's an old was an old sheep barn. And so, of course, as as usual, the dairy guy commandeers the old barns and tries to put cattle in them and figure that out. So they had a lot of old waters. These were old Richie's heated waters, probably 20 years old or more.

00;05;34;01 - 00;06;00;28
Brad
And we started putting cows in there and just started betting them and turn the waters on site. We, you know, did they work? Sure. Let's do it. And once you get saw and cows and old waters in there, things, start getting exposed, wires get exposed. And we actually started, one of the waters started on fire, I think partly because it was dry.

00;06;01;00 - 00;06;23;03
Brad
You started a water that hadn't been in use for a few years, and you have cobwebs as well, and things just ignite. And we burnt the water down and some of the bedding and straw around it. We thankfully it happened during the day, so we were around and we were able to catch it and, and stop it.

00;06;23;06 - 00;06;44;14
Brad
But it could have been a disaster and possibly burning the whole place down because there were a lot of these older waters in there. And so what did we do after that? Well, we ripped all the old waters out and, started over again. So we put put in brand new waters, new riches, new wiring to help with that.

00;06;44;14 - 00;07;04;05
Brad
So that was the only thing that we could rectify because we just didn't want to risk any of these other water starting on fire. They were old, cheap water. So, we could use better waters for the cattle, but we tried to get by with what we had. Like most people do. And, well, it could have been more of a disaster than what?

00;07;04;09 - 00;07;04;29
Brad
What we thought.

00;07;05;06 - 00;07;25;20
Emily
Yeah. You know, and I think that, but as you were just talking, I was thinking of my own family's farm, other farmers I know, and, you know, your story is not unlike a lot of other peoples. And especially the. Hey, we were just using something that was actually for something else. But it was usable. We had it around.

00;07;25;22 - 00;07;48;11
Emily
And I know that can be tempting, especially when you want to save money. Or again, you know, it still seems like it's usable. So let's keep using it. But yeah, I think you made the right step there to Bradley, and just we have to replace it, all right? And I'm sure, you know, there's a lot of cost with that, but can you put a price on peace of mind?

00;07;48;13 - 00;08;18;28
Brad
So if you I've, I've done a little bit of checking on this and there's some stuff on, on the internet you can find about Barton fires and number of animals. So I found from the Animal Welfare Institute and we can debate Animal Welfare Institute kind of that could be classified one of those organizations that is maybe not, as, favorable to, animal agriculture, but they do have a lot of statistics on their websites about barn fires.

00;08;18;28 - 00;08;50;16
Brad
And they have a report that goes out every year on barn fires. And in 2024, they estimated that about 1.6 million farm animals were killed by barn fires in 2024. In the US, large numbers were poultry barns. And poultry barns can be very deadly just because old wiring. Of course you have cobwebs, dust, you name it.

00;08;50;18 - 00;09;26;25
Brad
And those barns can start on fire very quickly. But if we think about Minnesota, where, where we are, there were, a few barn fires, where we had some horses, some sheep and some turkeys. And we'll probably put that in the show notes if you want to check out to see if, there has been some barn fires, but they have a nice report and some statistics there that, that show that obviously the number of animals that have died by barn fire have been going down in the last few years, which is good.

00;09;26;27 - 00;09;51;10
Brad
In 2020, there were a lot in 2023, there were a lot and maybe it went back up. So every year it tends to kind of fluctuate a lot. But most of the barn fires in the United States occur in about 5 or 6 states Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. Because obviously we all have winter animals are enclosed.

00;09;51;14 - 00;09;55;23
Brad
And that becomes a problem. Becomes a problem.

00;09;55;25 - 00;10;20;05
Emily
Yeah. And you know, we're we're talking a lot about the the infrastructure of the barn itself. But of course there are other things that that can cause barn fires. Right. Much more, human caused things. So I am aware of, of barn fires that have been started because there was, you know, a space heater being used in the milk house or the office or somewhere else.

00;10;20;07 - 00;10;41;16
Emily
Right. And it was left on overnight. Right? Forgot. So don't get me wrong, I'm, I get cold. So I like the space heater. Right. But yes, it's it's important to make sure if you're using those types of things, you're using them correctly and they're not meant to be plugged in and turned on and forgotten about like you're supposed to run them for 30 to 60 minutes.

00;10;41;20 - 00;10;44;00
Emily
So space heater.

00;10;44;02 - 00;11;19;20
Brad
Those darn space heaters cause lots of issue too. We have had our challenges and here for the little for the $40 that they cost, I don't know. Sometimes it may not be worth it. We've tracked space heater usage here, and it costs about $5 a day to run those things. They're very expensive to run, but if you look at a lot of reports on barn fires, especially here at this, Animal Welfare Institute site, about 40% of the barn fires are caused by some heating device.

00;11;19;20 - 00;11;27;22
Brad
Whether it's a space heater or a heat lamp, I get it, Emily. Those space heaters are nice, and we all like to stay warm. But, man, they can cause.

00;11;27;24 - 00;11;47;20
Emily
Right? And, you know, I don't I don't want to turn this into a cold weather safety episode. But if you need a space heater because you're that cold, consider, the layers of clothing you're wearing, you know, wool socks and nice clothes. The fitting base layer on top of warm things on top of the coat. So think about that again.

00;11;47;20 - 00;12;05;25
Emily
We won't get into cold weather safety right now. We do have an episode about that from I think last year two years ago. So we can find that or you can find that. But yeah space heaters you know yeah I think they're a lot more trouble than they're worth. And especially, you know, Brad mentioned some things before.

00;12;05;27 - 00;12;36;27
Emily
And that is just like the dust, the dirt, the dry shavings or straw or whatever other organic material it might be that just seems to always be around a farm. Right. And and what do we know, right? When dry material like that, it gets heated, it gets exposed to the right things. It can combust. And so, yeah, you know, thinking about space heater usage and, and some of those other kind of human caused things, another one is smoking.

00;12;36;29 - 00;12;57;08
Emily
So if you or an employee or somebody on your farm is a smoker, just make sure that they are not doing it in any building. They're not doing it around any dry bedding or feed material. You know, just just like any other business have kind of a designated area. I think the recommendation is at least 25ft away, from any buildings.

00;12;57;08 - 00;13;18;03
Emily
I don't know for sure, to be honest. But, you know, just those types of things, too, right? That we may be don't think about every day as being super consequential. But they can be. Right. And, and again, we, we don't want to just think about the infrastructure of the barn. We need to think about the human aspect of this, too.

00;13;18;05 - 00;13;25;13
Brad
So what are some of the things that we should do to help prevent barn fires?

00;13;25;15 - 00;13;48;28
Emily
Well, you know, there's a lot of things. Right. And and hopefully we've, you know, kind of gotten you to think about a few already. Right? A huge one for preventative measures is, is that infrastructure piece. Right. Have the wiring in your barn looked at. If you don't know the last time it was looked at or replaced, that means it's time to have it inspected.

00;13;49;00 - 00;14;11;23
Emily
Right. And maybe you do know and and again there, you know, hopefully if you've had it inspected before, you know, you have that relationship with an electrician, but this is something that really should be done yearly. You know, is bringing somebody out. And again, I know there may be costs associated with that, but, you know, you have to think about the overall cost benefit analysis.

00;14;11;23 - 00;14;35;05
Emily
Right. Would you rather, you know, spend the money to to have everything looked at once a year or, you know, have to deal with your barn burning down, you know, what's what's the real cost there? So that's a big one. Another one is kind of that cleanliness. You know, we talked about dust, cobwebs, you know, those kinds of things that just accumulate, right?

00;14;35;05 - 00;14;56;02
Emily
Like farms and barns are dirty. They're dirty and dusty. That's the reality of it. So making sure you're cleaning those things, right, dusting things off, giving them a good wipe down, you know, that's a thing that can be done, you know, at least yearly. Maybe it's done four times a year. Maybe it's done every month. Right.

00;14;56;02 - 00;15;35;09
Emily
If if you have a lot of helpers or people available on your farm, maybe that's something that you added, right. But keeping that stuff clean. Right. And then also just thinking about, you know, are there other things that need to be updated. Right. So light bulbs that can be a big one. Other heating equipment that you have, all of those things, it's it's a lot of just those maintenance pieces, when we're really looking at prevention and, and then, of course, some of the other things we've already talked about, like if somebody on your farm is a smoker, making sure they're doing that outside, and not near any barns,

00;15;35;11 - 00;16;04;14
Emily
or other buildings also, hopefully discouraging the use of space heaters and heat lamps. Or if you are going to use them, use them as recommended. You know, again, a space heater is not intended to be like plugged in and started and just ran all day long. That's not the function of it. So if you are going to be using those types of tools, just make sure that you're using them according to the recommendations.

00;16;04;14 - 00;16;24;15
Emily
Right. Actually read the instructions that come with them. You know, because you, you just don't know what can happen, right? And you want to be mindful and, and also just thinking about, you know, when, when these things are caused, there's a lot of implications and what that can also mean for insurance and other things as well.

00;16;24;17 - 00;16;55;10
Emily
And so, you know, if you're doing your part to make sure that everything is up to date and up to code and you're paying attention to these things, right. And maybe even having a conversation with your insurance agent about it. You know, what else should I be doing for fire prevention? They may have ideas. There may be, you know, funding available even to get things, because that leads me to kind of my final point, and that is fire extinguishers.

00;16;55;12 - 00;17;19;03
Emily
So that's kind of, another last line of defense, so to speak, and fire prevention, making sure you have a fire extinguisher. So if something does ignite, you can put it out quickly. So, you know, if you have a fire extinguisher in your house, you don't have a fire extinguisher for your barn. Right? So there should be a fire extinguisher in every building.

00;17;19;05 - 00;17;43;25
Emily
Right. And if it's a larger building or a larger barn, maybe there needs to be more than one. Another thing with, fire extinguishers, the, the kind of rolling recommendation is to get an ABC extinguisher. So that just refers to what is actually in the canister. And so ABCs are rated to be used on multiple types of fires.

00;17;43;27 - 00;18;03;06
Emily
Because. Right. You you may get more than one type of fire. It could be electrical, could be chemical, etc.. So a fire extinguisher, those also do need to be maintenance. So maybe you think, oh, I do have fire extinguishers, I'm good to go. When was the last time they were maintenance? Those should also be looked at once a year.

00;18;03;08 - 00;18;18;26
Emily
And they should have some of them do have the little gauge on them that you can look at. So check those gauges if they're in the red. It's not actually usable fire extinguisher right now. So be sure to get that serviced Bradley do you a fire extinguishers at Morris?

00;18;18;28 - 00;18;35;20
Brad
Of course, yes we do in every barn. Every barn. And we get them checked and serviced once a year. It's just one of those things that just helps. And we have used them before and we've used them. So we're not trying to chase all around the farm. Trying to figure out where we have one in the form doesn't work.

00;18;35;22 - 00;18;47;03
Brad
Yes. I would definitely suggest if you do not have a fire extinguisher in your barn, you should get one. They're relatively inexpensive. Might save your barn one day.

00;18;47;05 - 00;19;12;22
Emily
Yeah. Absolutely. And that's a thing, too, I would say, if you maybe you have extinguishers where you go. Well, I don't know how to use it. You can find general instructions online also, maybe again, if you're a larger farm with employees, you can contact your local fire department. And, and I know many fire departments that are willing to come and help do training on how to properly use a fire extinguishers.

00;19;12;22 - 00;19;19;29
Emily
So, that's something to is if you have those, make sure that folks know how to use them as well.

00;19;20;01 - 00;19;42;14
Brad
And probably the last thing that I would consider, and all of this is to have an emergency action plan. So all the employees know what to do. Where are the employees? So they know where fire extinguishers are. If the barn is burning, they know how to get out, who to call all of that stuff. So develop an emergency action plan.

00;19;42;14 - 00;20;06;01
Brad
It doesn't have to be a long, drawn out, large document that nobody ever reads. It could be a one pager and put up some signs around the barns so people know where the exits are and who to call, but definitely have an emergency action plan. If this ever happens, because you never know. We didn't expect that it would happen here, but it has.

00;20;06;03 - 00;20;08;18
Emily
And do you have an emergency action plan now?

00;20;08;24 - 00;20;24;28
Brad
We do, we do. And we've had one before. And I think that's probably what has helped us sort of save things. As people know where extinguishers are there in every barn and it's easy to just go grab it quick and put it out and before it it becomes a large problem.

00;20;25;00 - 00;20;27;16
Emily
Yeah. That's, music to my ears.

00;20;27;16 - 00;20;47;16
Brad
Bradley, I would say that the emergency action plan probably helped save us just by having that. And it's not extensive. And yes, we have extensive plans, but we also have short ones and people know what to do, and we're training employees on that kind of stuff. So if it ever happens, they should know what to do.

00;20;47;18 - 00;21;14;03
Emily
I love that. And, you know, we've talked about emergency planning before and it's a topic I'm really passionate about. And, you know, you you hit on a good point there Bradley. Like that. Yes. You have kind of the thorough probably one that fills a whole binder. But then yeah. Is there just a one pager with the basics. And I say that because when an emergency is happening, right, like we are only human, so we have a stress response.

00;21;14;03 - 00;21;42;22
Emily
It may be fight or flight. So we may forget even the simplest stuff. Right. And as we're panicking or as we feel like we don't know what to do next, having. Yes, simply a one pager that says something like call 911. Here's the farm's address. Here's who else you need to call after that, right? That can again, just help expedite that process because, you know, we we won't jump totally into the mental health side of it.

00;21;42;22 - 00;22;14;26
Emily
But in those stressful situations, we are not at 100% right. We are not thinking clearly. And so while we may think, oh, I would know to call 911 or, you know, I would remember the farm's address. That's really easy to say when you're not in the situation. Right. And again, if you have employees, you know, or people you know, family members that don't live on the farm, they may, you know, not know the address because they just know the landmarks or they know, hey, I take County Road 42.

00;22;14;29 - 00;22;40;00
Emily
But they don't know the actual address. So yes, even just having some of that information written down somewhere. So people just have something to look to, that can be really helpful in stressful situations as well. Now, you know, when we said we kind of wanted to do a quicker episode today. So, you know, just as a reminder, think about the wiring and electrical in your barn.

00;22;40;02 - 00;22;50;29
Emily
Think about what else you are using, like space heaters and heat lamps. You know, perform your regular maintenance and, and have a plan and have fire extinguishers.

00;22;50;29 - 00;22;59;03
Brad
Exactly. Plan and fire extinguishers. That will be the first front of defense and will probably save your barn. At least try to.

00;22;59;06 - 00;23;22;26
Emily
Yeah, absolutely. You having some prevention measures in place may or may not stop it completely, but can definitely stop things from getting too bad or two out of control. Right. So all right. Well I think we will wrap it there then. If you have any questions, comments or scathing rebuttals about today's episode, you can email those to the Moos room at Umkc.

00;23;22;26 - 00;23;45;26
Emily
Edu. You can also call and leave us a voicemail at (612) 624-3610. You can find us on the web extension Umkc edu slash farm safety. And of course you can find Bradley on Instagram at NWC Rock dairy. And that's a wrap by.

00;23;45;28 - 00;23;51;06
Brad
Shout out to Mike Donnelly. If you listen to the end.

00;23;51;09 - 00;23;52;05
Emily
Oh I love that.