Local dairy farmers chip in to help Mock family
While Dawn Mock and her family pick up the pieces, the community of local dairy farmers are working to look out for one of their own.
“It’s been overwhelming,” Mock said. “The community, our neighbors, the farmers, the firefighters. They’ve been great to us.
Community members stepped up after an emotional day for the Mocks — their dairy barn, located on Powell Road in Penn Township, burned down in a large fire Wednesday morning, Oct. 22. Alan Troyer, chief of the Penn Township Volunteer Fire Department, said the structure was a total loss.
First reported around 9:30 a.m., the fire grew big enough that black smoke could be seen from miles away over the tree line.
“My husband and I stepped out for a little bit while our son was finishing milking the cows,” Mock said. “I texted him asking if he needed anything and he called me immediately and said to call 911. We were only two minutes away, when we pulled into the driveway we could see it right there.”
Fortunately, there was no loss of life. Mock gives a lot of credit to her children. She said her oldest son Wyatt, 24, took action as soon as the flames started, hopping on the tractors to get them out of the barn, then getting the cows out too.
Mock’s dairy farm is one of 22 in Butler County. The family farm, Mock said, has about 60 cows.
As the fire raged on, agencies from multiple counties had to responded to provide sufficient water and stop it from spreading out of control, as the wind helped it spread to a lot of hay. Meanwhile, local dairy farmers were already springing to action.
“One of us on Facebook follows the scanner page and they recognized the address and we found out it was the Mock’s,” William Thiele, owner of Thiele Dairy Farm in Jefferson Township, said. “All of us dairy farmers know the animal situation and how dangerous that can get.”
Mock said one of her neighbors brought an excavator over to the farm to try and break up some of the hay and stop the fire from spreading.
After the fire, around seven other farms took in the cows temporarily.
“Our farming friends really pulled together, they had trailers up and down the road, loaded the cows up on the fly, just trying to figure out who could take however many,” Mock said.
Additionally, a GoFundMe has been created to raise money to rebuild the barn. As of 6 p.m. Thursday evening, it had raised over $26,000.
Thiele said he and the other dairy farmers will wait and see how things go in the coming weeks, but will house the cows for the time being. He acknowledged that, while it may be a tiny inconvenience, it’s nothing compared to what the Mock family is having to deal with.
“They had cows that needed milking last evening, not everyone has the equipment to do that,” Thiele said. “We took 11 of their weaned calves, so those are some of their younger animals, about three to six months in age. We took them because they did not have water because of the well in the barn burned up and we have room to temporarily house them.”
Mock said she doesn’t know what will come next as her family tries to move forward after the fire. But the community support has helped them tremendously.
“It’s just been so overwhelming, everybody has been so supportive of us,” Mock said.
