100K chickens, 450 cows believed dead in Abbotsford floods, farms press on

Hundreds of thousands of livestock are believed to have perished when flood waters hit Abbotsford’s Sumas Prairie area last week.

Well over a million chickens were living in the area when catastrophic flooding began early last week. At least 100,000 are believed to have perished and around 450 cows died.

Despite the flooding, meat and eggs have continued to come from farms, which in some cases, are still surrounded by water.

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“We are still actively farming in there, and we’re actually pulling a lot of the product out. So product is ready for market,” said Ray Nickel who is a poultry farmer and a director on the BC Chicken Marketing Board.

Nickel’s property was spared by the flood, but he’s now part of the industry’s emergency response.

Farmers have been hauling in fresh water and supplies to keep operations going. There are 44 poultry farms in the area hardest hit by flooding in the last week.

“There’s 28 chicken farms — meat-producing farms — and of those 28, there’s about 1.4 million birds that are placed. The majority of that will be shipped out. But we know that the losses are over 100,000 at least. We don’t know a definitive number,” Nickel explained.

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The BC Dairy Association says around 450 cows were killed in the floods. Chair Holger Schwitchenberg says 62 farms and 6,000 cattle were given the alert to leave.

“A lot stayed in place because they couldn’t be moved in time. Unfortunately, the numbers I have are about 450 did not make it,” he explained.

“They weren’t all lactating cows. There were also some young stocks.”

He says this is a small hit to the industry, but devastating to the individual farmers.

“It’s heartbreaking to lose any cows, and I’m sure it’s very, very difficult for them,” Schwitchenberg said, adding farmers are doing their best to move forward.

“They will be removed and when they’re ready and able, the barns will be cleaned out, new bedding will be put in, and the other cows will go back into those barns.”

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Schwitchenberg says when farms were alerted about the need to evacuate, farmers started calling each other for help.

“I received a phone call … The question was ‘How many can you take?’ I said 30. So, we had 30 lacerating cows come to our herd. Other herds took 70. One large outfit took 500. It was whatever you could make room for,” he said, adding everyone pitched in.

“These are your friends and neighbours and you help out. You don’t ask a lot of questions. You make it happen, and you talk about the rest later,” adding if all goes well, all of the cows he took in will be going back to their original farms Thursday.

‘You can’t even imagine’: Farmers inundated with work to continue operations in flooded conditions

With work continuing in the middle of a flood zone, farmers are working hard and getting extremely tired. For chicken farming, Nickel says keeping operations going in these conditions is extremely difficult.

“You can’t even imagine,” he said. “We’ve had a huge amount of support from not only the community at large, but particularly in that area.”

The dairy industry in particular has been lending a helping hand, Nickel said.

“The dairy guys have been really good with some of their larger equipment, being able to get access to the barns from off the roads, helping guys with pulling trailers or bringing totes or whatever’s needed to keep things up and operational. There are so many great, heroic stories that have gone on in that area.”

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Many of the poultry farms have two-level barns, so even if the lower level is completely washed out, there’s still another floor to work with.

Nickel heard of one story where a producer was dealing with that exact scenario, and the water level was rising to where the feed bin is located.

“We’ve got big silos that stand upright … If the water gets to the bottom of that bin, it’ll clog up and you’re done. You cannot feed the barn anymore,” he explained, adding volunteers came by at the perfect time to ask if they could help.

“These guys all jumped out, sandbagged completely around his bin area. He managed to get a pump in there, and so the barn kept functioning even though he had water lapping up against the side of it and these sandbags. He ended up successfully shipping out that top floor.”

It’s been 10 days of hard working through the flood.

“Guys are getting tired. Some of my peers I was visiting with … I could just tell, these guys are getting exhausted,” he said, adding they are also nervous about the next round of rain this week.

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Farmers are asking for patience from customers, as both the poultry and dairy industries work to get things back to normal.

Milk has appeared to be in short supply, with some B.C. coffee shops running low.

Coffee giant Starbucks said it closed some stores in Canada and reduced hours of operation at several others, citing “various levels of products available.” Some McDonald’s customers have also been told to enjoy an americano instead of a cappuccino in the Lower Mainland in recent days.

Others have headed to the supermarket, only to find few milk products to buy, and limits in place.

 

Schwitchenberg says milk pick-up was affected for several days because the roads were impassable, but he believes 80 per cent of the milk being produced is now being picked up.

“All the processing needs for the fluid side of the market is being met right now. So, any shortages you see will be very temporary,” he said.

He expects things to pick up later this week and dairy production and supply will fully get back to normal by the middle of December.

With files from Claire Fenton