It might not be something most people are aware of but stray ground current is a real issue and can be deadly for livestock.
Chatham-Kent-Leamington MPP Rick Nicholls has been working on the issue for years.
“My main motivator for this was a gentleman from just north of Chatham, Lee Montgomery, Lee back in the 80s had prized dairy cattle that suddenly became ill,” Nicholls says “It was determined that it was stray current that in fact was slowly killing his prized dairy cattle and eventually he lost his entire herd.”
Nicholls says it affects dairy and beef cattle, hogs, and goat farmers as well.
“It is a big issue for farmers in Chatham-Kent, it’s mostly prevalent in the dairy cattle industry, we don’t have a lot of dairy cattle farmers down in the Chatham-Kent area, but they are around, there’s 3300 dairy farmers throughout Ontario.”
For the past year he has been speaking with experts and Nicholls’ motion to form a group to investigate a way to accurately measure stray current gained legislative approval.
“I’m calling for a working group to be established to determine the most efficient and effective way to measure stray current on farms, so that the problem can then be corrected in a very beneficial way for the farmers.”
