In Missouri, storms with lightning and thunder are a normal part of the season. Recently, the area had seen some severe weather and flooding, causing serious damage.
One Saturday morning, Jared Blackwelder, a local farmer, and his wife Misty were out feeding their dairy cows. They heard loud crashes of thunder, but didn’t think much of it. After all, storms like this happened all the time.
But later that day, Jared went to the pasture to gather the cows for their evening milking—and what he saw stopped him in his tracks. All 32 of his cows were lying dead, piled on top of each other in the field. The once lively pasture was now eerily quiet, and Jared couldn’t believe his eyes.
Stan Coday, the president of the Wright County Missouri Farm Bureau, later explained what had happened. “Jared went out to bring the cows in, but instead, he found every single one of them dead.”
CBS News reported that while it’s not rare for lightning to strike and kill livestock, what made this situation extreme was the sheer number of cows that were lost all at once. When the local vet arrived, he confirmed that lightning was indeed the cause of death.
It’s likely the cows, scared by the storm, huddled together under the trees for safety, not knowing they were making themselves a bigger target for the lightning.
“You’re at the mercy of nature,” Coday said, recalling how he had lost a cow to lightning himself a few years ago. Farmers are used to dealing with risks like this, but when disaster strikes, it’s still heartbreaking.
“They’re not pets, but I’ve raised every one of them,” Jared told the Springfield News-Leader, his voice heavy with emotion. Dairy cows are handled twice a day, every day, which makes their loss deeply personal. It’s not just about losing animals; it’s about losing something he cared for day in and day out.
The financial impact was also devastating. Jared mentioned he had insurance, but he wasn’t sure if it would cover all of the $60,000 he estimated the loss to be. Each of the certified organic cows was worth around $2,000 to $2,500.
Most farmers don’t have insurance for their livestock, according to Coday. Losing just one cow is tough, but losing all of them? That’s a nightmare. “Losing a cow means losing everything,” Coday said.
Some concerned neighbors asked if the meat from the cows could still be used, but Coday, who also raises beef cows, explained why that wasn’t possible. “The cows had been dead for several hours before they were found,” he said. “That makes the meat unsafe for people to eat.”
He also pointed out that most farmers in Missouri don’t keep their cows in separate barns. The weather is usually mild enough that barns aren’t necessary, though, as this tragic event shows, nature can still strike in unexpected ways.
For Jared and Misty, it was a loss that went far beyond just numbers. They had to face the hard truth: nature had taken away what they had worked so hard to build. Now, they would need to find a way to move forward, even as the storm’s devastation lingered in their hearts.