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Mysterious red substance may be sickening cows on Enumclaw farm

A member of the Washington State Department of Agriculture investigative team inspects a cow at John Koopman's dairy farm Tuesday in Enumclaw, Wash. Koopman found a sticky red substance on some of his cows. Three have since died. No other farmers have reported similar problems. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)
Melanthia Mitchell Associated Press
A member of the Washington State Department of Agriculture investigative team inspects a cow at John Koopman's dairy farm Tuesday in Enumclaw, Wash. Koopman found a sticky red substance on some of his cows. Three have since died. No other farmers have reported similar problems. (Associated Press / The Spokesman-Review)

ENUMCLAW, Wash. – At first, dairy farmer John Koopman thought he had one ailing cow.

It was a Sunday morning, and after checking the animal, he went back in the house to get ready for church. Then one of his milkers reported a second animal down.

Koopman headed back outside and then spotted a red sticky substance on the sick animals – 10 in all.

“It was like they were drunk. They couldn’t get their feet under them,” he said Tuesday on his 40-acre spread near here, as black-and-white Holstein cows grazed behind white-painted iron fencing. “They were just violently sick.”

Three of the cows have died since that June 6 discovery. The other seven appear to be recovering slowly, said spokesman Blair Thompson with the state Dairy Products Commission.

The cause was still unknown, authorities said.

Koopman, who has operated the 40-acre spread since 1990, said he’s dumped all his cows’ milk – about 24,000 pounds, or 2,000 gallons, daily – since discovering the problem.

“My life is upside-down right now,” he said, noting he and other farmers’ livelihoods depend on the safety of the food supply. “I’m worried. I’m scared. I’m not sure what tomorrow will bring.”

He said he did not think there was any connection between the problem and his board position at WestFarm Foods, a dairy cooperative that in May resolved a months-long dispute with the Teamsters union.

Workers with the state Agriculture Department completed their inventory of Koopman’s 340 dairy cows on Tuesday and “don’t plan to come back tomorrow,” Thompson said.

State Dairy Federation official Jay Gordon said the “red, sticky, tacky substance” found on the cows does not appear to be anything normally found on a dairy farm.

The substance, apparently splashed on the animals’ backs, is “causing welts,” Gordon said Tuesday. “That’s not normal. That’s well outside anything animal husbandry teaches you to deal with.”

Tissue samples from the stricken cows have been sent to a Food and Drug Administration’s Forensic Chemical Center in Ohio and also to Washington State University’s Animal Disease Diagnostics Lab in Pullman, Gordon said.

FDA spokeswoman Kim Rawlings in Washington, D.C., said she was checking hourly with the lab but had no news to report at midday Tuesday.

WSU officials did not immediately return a call seeking comment.