Stray Voltage Forum Generates Discussion
DAVELEFEVER
Lancaster Farming Staff
CAMP HILL (Cumberland Co.) What’s the
straight truth about stray voltage? How much
blame does it deserve for problems in dairy and
other livestock performance?
National and local experts gathered here April 9-
11 to share their views on what many of them say is
an often misunderstood topic.
The forum called “Stray Voltage and Dairy
Farms” was organized by the Natural Resource,
Agriculture, and Engineering Service (NRAES) of
Cornell Cooperative Extension. The Pennsylvania
Department of Agriculture (PDA) helped provide
funding.
Yes, stray voltage exists, but fears of it are often
overblown, according to several investigators in the
field Vf'ho spoke with Lancaster Farming before the
conference began.
LaVerne Stetson, a former engineer with the
USDA, has been a leading stray voltage researcher
ever since he first investigated it on a midwestern
hog facility in 1976.
According to Stetson, stray voltage is not as mys
terious as some people think, and it often gets
blamed for problems it doesn’t cause.
“We can measure it, analyze it, and correct it,”
he said. “There’s a perception that stray voltage
does many more things than it actually does.”
Investigations on Pennsylvania dairy farms seem
Michael Stringfellow, left, and LaVerne
Stetson are longtime stray voltage investi
gators who spoke at a recent conference on
Stray Voltage and Dairy Farms.
Tom Wilson has
been investigating
stray voltage com
plaints on dairy farms
in Pennsylvania for
three years.
to back up Stetson’s assertion.
Tom Wilson, ag engineer and extension agent in
northwest Pennsylvania, has been doing on-farm
testing and working with utility and service provid
ers in response to stray voltage complaints in the
state.
Through a PDA grant, Wilson has investigated
about 100 dairy farms over the past three years,
ranging in herd size from 20 to 500 cows, housed in
various facilities. Producers complained of symp
toms potentially caused by stray voltage, such as
high somatic cell counts, animal avoidance behav
ior, and low production.,
Wilson said about 5 percent of the farms with
complaints had stray voltage levels high enough to
affect animal performance. On the majority of the
farms, however, stray voltage wasn’t an issue.
Symptoms that made the producers suspect pos
sible stray voltage “could come from a hundred
other causes,” Wilson said, including poor milking
and other management practices.
On farms where stray voltage was a problem,
Wilson found it was generally caused by improper
wiring.
“Wiring is the biggest issue,” Wilson said. “If it’s
on the farm, it usually just takes a good electrician”
to eliminate stray voltage. Sometimes bad wiring
was found on newer facilities as well as older ones.
In cases where the utility company is at fault,
they are usually easy to work with in correcting the
problem, Wilson noted.
A big part of Wilson’s job is providing solid,
scientic information to producers in order to over
come irrational fears.
“The problem with stray voltage is, once it gets
mentioned, people get fixated on it,” he said.
Also on hand was Michael Stringfellow, chief sci-
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