The following article may contain media that some viewers may find disturbing, discretion advised
Every piece of the puzzle is falling right into place after a massive cattle loss in southwest Kansas.
"They've lost 20 to 30 thousand head of cattle." Corbitt Wall, a beef expert said.
The video above shows hundreds of dead cattle from heat stress, racking up hundreds of thousands of views on the internet.
Thursday afternoon a feed-yard consultant verified this video was taken at a lot in southwest Kansas.
He said he's seen it himself and many feed-yards in the Ulysses area have had cattle die from this extreme heat.
"There was no conspiracy..." Jess shearer, a veterinarian at Hillsboro Animal Clinic said.
"When all those things come together, that sometimes happens."
When it comes to dealing with the heat, veterinarian Dr. Jess Shearer said cattle are usually pretty resilient.
"Usually these first weeks of June are when we really start to see these animals get hit with it."
What's different about this situation, though...
It rained just days before, making the pens muddy, humidity was higher than normal, there was no breeze, and temperatures spiked well over a hundred degrees.
"All those factors combined could have made temperatures in feedlot bins much hotter," Wall said.
"The guys take good care of the cattle,
"It's no different than having a bad winter storm."
Many were market-ready cattle, weighing well over 1,000 pounds... and on top of that, it's been a pretty cool year so far, and the cattle weren't adjusted to the spike in temperature, many are still shedding winter coats.
"Recently, what we've seen, is we've seen very high temperatures throughout the day," Shearer said.
"The temperatures at night are not even coming down very low.
"And when the animals can't cool off at night, the stress really catches up with them."
Wall says while these numbers may seem shocking... experts said it's important to keep in mind some feedlots hold up to 120 thousand head of cattle.
