OqRanch
Well-known member
Well, it did. We got 15 minutes of rain. Woopty do.OqRanch said:
Texas Drought
- Thread starter beefy08
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aj
Well-known member
Western Kansas went through a 8 year drought where I am out. Cows have to be sold or moved out of the country. You can't feed your way out of a drought. We had a guy who had cows out here. He would sell cows to buy feed....then sell cows to buy feed...he ended up with no cow or feed. we probably lost 40% of ranchers and farmers out here through the deal. Now it is raining like crazy. A drought will kill people,their spirit, and there finances. Good luck to you guys.
justintime
Well-known member
I feel so sorry for all who are affected by severe drought. We went through a decade of terrible drought in the 80s and have had sporatic drought ever since. A big part of Western Canada has been extremely dry this year, and in parts of Alberta, I have heard that some auction marts are refusing to accept cow- calf pairs, as there is no one to you them, and if they sell them separately, the cow is sold to a packer buyer, and the calf remains unsold.
We cut our hay twice in 11 years between 1980 and 1991. We purchased an obscene amount of hay and straw. Looking back we may have been stupid to try and save a herd of cows that had been bred for over 75 years, but my dad was adamant that we could not lose two generations of work. We sold down, but we still had about 125 cows and what was the worst, our stupid bank insisted that we had to continue to feed cattle, or they would pull our loans. I don't know how we made it through, but we did somehow.
I remember one year, I baled close to 2000 round bales of straw. There was a decent crop in some of the heavier land north of us. I started baling straw about 40 miles north of home, and when I had finished, I was over 100 miles from home. Farmers would stop in and ask me if I was needing more straw and I would take it. They normally did not allow their straw to be baled but many wanted to help the cattle producers, so allowed the straw to be taken off for one year only. We also heard that there was a seed grower south of us, that was cleaning sunflower seeds, and I heard he had a small mountain of cull sunflowers, that he did not know what to do with. He had hauled loads of them out into a slough and just dumped them. We were able to get them for taking them away, and we tub ground wheat straw, and trickled sunflower screenings into it , and wet it down with stillage from a distillery in our home town. We filled 2 90 foot silos with this and it heated, and fermented. When we tested this strawlage, it was higher in protein and TDN than our grass/ alfalfa silage ( of which we had very little).The cattle loved this feet and did well on it.
We also had plagues of grasshoppers during this period of time, and the countryside looked like the surface of the moon. It was the most depressing time in my life, and it haunts me to this day.
This year we have been fortunate as we are going to get enough feed put up. We have been limping along moisture wise, however, a cooler than normal summer has helped. We have more hay that many people so I am very thankful. There has already been a major sell off of cows in parts of Western Canada, and there will be many more this fall. Hay or no hay, for many commercial producers, this year is the last straw. Many are saying that the cows are going regardless of the markets, and they will make up the losses selling their feed. Hay prices are through the roof... at ridiculous prices. It always amazes me how far some people will truck hay. One of my neighbours has about 1500 acres of alfalfa. He also has a fleet to highway trucks that he hauls freight throughout N America. Last year, almost all his hay ( in big square bales) was trucked to Texas and Louisiana. It is a long old drive from here to Texas!
Good luck to all who are experiencing drought. Hold on and hope and pray for some rain soon.
We cut our hay twice in 11 years between 1980 and 1991. We purchased an obscene amount of hay and straw. Looking back we may have been stupid to try and save a herd of cows that had been bred for over 75 years, but my dad was adamant that we could not lose two generations of work. We sold down, but we still had about 125 cows and what was the worst, our stupid bank insisted that we had to continue to feed cattle, or they would pull our loans. I don't know how we made it through, but we did somehow.
I remember one year, I baled close to 2000 round bales of straw. There was a decent crop in some of the heavier land north of us. I started baling straw about 40 miles north of home, and when I had finished, I was over 100 miles from home. Farmers would stop in and ask me if I was needing more straw and I would take it. They normally did not allow their straw to be baled but many wanted to help the cattle producers, so allowed the straw to be taken off for one year only. We also heard that there was a seed grower south of us, that was cleaning sunflower seeds, and I heard he had a small mountain of cull sunflowers, that he did not know what to do with. He had hauled loads of them out into a slough and just dumped them. We were able to get them for taking them away, and we tub ground wheat straw, and trickled sunflower screenings into it , and wet it down with stillage from a distillery in our home town. We filled 2 90 foot silos with this and it heated, and fermented. When we tested this strawlage, it was higher in protein and TDN than our grass/ alfalfa silage ( of which we had very little).The cattle loved this feet and did well on it.
We also had plagues of grasshoppers during this period of time, and the countryside looked like the surface of the moon. It was the most depressing time in my life, and it haunts me to this day.
This year we have been fortunate as we are going to get enough feed put up. We have been limping along moisture wise, however, a cooler than normal summer has helped. We have more hay that many people so I am very thankful. There has already been a major sell off of cows in parts of Western Canada, and there will be many more this fall. Hay or no hay, for many commercial producers, this year is the last straw. Many are saying that the cows are going regardless of the markets, and they will make up the losses selling their feed. Hay prices are through the roof... at ridiculous prices. It always amazes me how far some people will truck hay. One of my neighbours has about 1500 acres of alfalfa. He also has a fleet to highway trucks that he hauls freight throughout N America. Last year, almost all his hay ( in big square bales) was trucked to Texas and Louisiana. It is a long old drive from here to Texas!
Good luck to all who are experiencing drought. Hold on and hope and pray for some rain soon.
I did get a rain in early May of 7.5 inches with 6 inches of hail in a 24 hour period from two rains at a rate of 19 inches per hour. Very little went into the ground, but tanks filled up and fences washed out. We now have only two tanks with water in them, not one bale of hay, wheat was turned in for insurance, millet burned up, but today we have gotten 7 tenths. Most of the rains have been very spotty... and I live in the wrong spot. I had gotten very little rain, but appreciate what has fallen today.
Yesterday, I was in New Mexico and it is really dry from Roswell to the mountains. It was so dry that we stopped at the "Bottomless Lake" and I told my cousins, we looked in and sure enough it was dried up and you could see the Chinese farmers on the other side.
Yesterday, I was in New Mexico and it is really dry from Roswell to the mountains. It was so dry that we stopped at the "Bottomless Lake" and I told my cousins, we looked in and sure enough it was dried up and you could see the Chinese farmers on the other side.
