What We Know About the Mysterious Cattle Deaths in Central Texas

“There was nothing we could do.” It’s a phrase that rancher Jerry Abel returns to often when talking about the the day that his cattle dropped dead on his ranch. Listening to him talk about it, one is struck by the sense of powerlessness he felt watching the animals succumb. Abel raises cattle for rodeo events, and it was after a roping exercise last May that he set his cows to pasture. “The field adjacent to their pen, it wasn’t really good enough because of the drought for haying,” Abel told StateImpact Texas. “But there was quite a bit of grass on there. So we decided we could just turn the cattle out on it so they could graze some.” It was about two hours later that the cows started to bellow. Abel and his trainer rushed back to see what was the matter. “There were some already dead and the rest of them were on the ground, in convulsions and obviously dying. And there was really nothing we could do. Out of the 18 that had been there 15 of them died,” he said. The shock of watching the cows die gave way to a new surprise when researchers determined what had killed them. The cattle died after eating the fresh growth in the pasture. Prussic acid, a compound much like cyanide, had formed in the grass. At first, both USDA scientists and Texas Agrilife Extension researchers couldn’t believe what they had found...more