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LUBBOCK, Texas • Dairy producers in West Texas and eastern New Mexico are continuing to assess how many animals died in the winter storm last weekend, but the number will probably climb to more than 30,000, an official with a dairy group said Thursday.

Texas Association of Dairymen executive director Darren Turley said an estimated 15,000 mature dairy cows died in the storm’s primary impact area — from Lubbock west to Muleshoe and north to Friona which is home to half of the state’s top-10 milk producing counties and produces 40 percent of the state’s milk.

An agent with New Mexico State University’s extension service told Turley the area around Clovis, New Mexico, lost an estimated 20,000 dairy cows.

The number of younger animals killed by Winter Storm Goliath in each state could be just as high as the mature cows, he said.

There will be less milk coming from the region for a while, Turley said,

The snow was just one part of Goliath. It was the wind that led to drifts as high as 14 feet, where many animals died. Wind will push animals into a fenced corner where they can suffocate in snow drifts.

“It’s a once-in-a-lifetime (storm),” Turley said. “It’s a bad deal for producers.”