# Managing Cow Herd Going into Drought



## vhaby (Dec 30, 2009)

It's been hot and dry for a prolonged time in many parts of Texas. Our place is not considered overstocked with 42 cows, 3 bulls, and 12 yearling heifers on about 95 acres of well-fertilized hay and pasture land for a normal rainfall year, but this year is not normal. Spring rainfall was adequate to produce 1.5 cuttings of round bale grass hay and 4 cuttings of alfalfa to almost refill the 50 x 100 ft hay barn with what was fed last winter, but then the spotty showers began missing here. Today we made the difficult decision to sell all our calves except 8 of the best looking Brangus heifers three months earlier than normal because the grass, although it is staying green, is not growing. There will be no vac-45 weaning for a special calf sale this year. I put out rb grass hay Friday, at least two months earlier than normal, and the cows are eating it. If it doesn't rain soon, we will have to cull more of the cows.

Plans are to plant about 50 acres of cereal rye and oats in October and 8 acres of ryegrass in the alfalfa (taking it out after 5 seasons) in September as soon as we receive adequate moisture for germination and growth, but that will be a while before it is ready for grazing. Since I'm relatively new at cattle management going into a drought, how do you well-experienced guys handle this kind of situation?


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## IHCman (Aug 27, 2011)

Managing for a drought is tough. We're going through our second dry year as well. We were fortunate that we got some rain in June of this year to get things growing or we'd all been in serious trouble.

The biggest thing we do here is try to keep some carryover hay every year just in case. Up here there are years we might have to feed for 7 months which can really use up the hay quickly. If we can we try and graze cows as long as possible in the fall to save on hay and feed. This year we hayed an 80 acre field and then broke it up as it needed to be reseeded. I seeded a grazing cover crop on it in hopes it'd rain and I'd get enough growth so I could get some grazing on it this fall. Well the seeds been in the ground 2 weeks with no rain so hasn't come up yet. Raining tonight but I wonder how much growth I'll get yet before a hard frost.

We also have all our pastures crossfenced and do a twice over rotational grazing. Neighbors that don't rotate have commented that we always seem to have grass. Even with our rotational grazing, dry years really hurt and some of our pastures get short. Try not to graze them to short so they recover quicker if it does rain.

Many people up here are scambling to put together enough feed for the winter. Baling weeds, cattails, straw, and anything else they can find.


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

I sold 1/2 of my cows which were the oldest ones about a month ago. I was very fortunate to get 4.5'' of rain a couple of weeks ago & the grass greened up but isn't growing very fast. If conditions don't change in the next 30-60 days I'm thinking about liquidating the remainder of my cows. One can't feed cattle hay that will sell for $80+ per rd bale for 8-9 months & make it pencil out a profit. I have several 100 rd bales of cornstalks but I dislike feeding them


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## StxPecans (Mar 3, 2018)

Yup, I think anyone in Texas with grazing animals have been thinking/doing the same stuff. I still have hope for rain. For the most part in Texas with ample moisture we can grow forage year round. 
I can't help but laugh when looking at the US drought map. I drove through most of Missouri and Iowa that is colored more red than Texas and If thats what they call drought I might as well be on the moon.


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## glasswrongsize (Sep 15, 2015)

StxPecans said:


> Yup, I think anyone in Texas with grazing animals have been thinking/doing the same stuff. I still have hope for rain. For the most part in Texas with ample moisture we can grow forage year round.
> I can't help but laugh when looking at the US drought map. I drove through most of Missouri and Iowa that is colored more red than Texas and If thats what they call drought I might as well be on the moon.


Drought and the way people, critters, and plants handle it is all relative. A place that averages X rainfall every year has plants that grow according to the climate. Another place that averages 1/10X rainfall every year probably supports other plants than the wetter climate. If either drops below or receives substantial increase over "normal", things suffer. "Drought" is variable and relative...just like "cold". Swmnhay and Stack would snicker at what I think is "cold" and would fall out of their chairs laughing (as I did) when I was in Cuba and seen that THEY think is "cold". JD3430 would laugh at what I call a "lot" of snow as I did when I saw what the people in Charleston SC dealt with a dusting of snow that shut the town down until the Sun come out and melted it off in a couple hours.

Drought is relative to the plants that live in the climate. A drought that would put my bald Cyprus o or Weepin willer on the firewood pile would plumb drown a cactus.

...just my meanderings.

Mark


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## Vol (Jul 5, 2009)

Someone is always worse off than what we might realize.....take a look at the four corners region. Those folks are having it really tough.

Regards, Mike

http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu


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## Palmettokat (Jul 10, 2017)

Mark, Charleston is about 90 miles south of me. (Note a good Southerner never claims to be north, the other guy is south of you. No insult meant, to those who live "north". ) We have many many people who move here for two big reasons: lower cost of living mostly due to less government and the other is snow. They pushed or blew it for years. They fought it in so many ways. Here it is a Holiday for us. Yes we shut down when we get a heavy snow of an inch. lol

I do think snow is pretty but no idea how those in heavy snow country handle it. Then heavy snow country worries little about hurricanes. Seems each area of this great county has their own special weather issue.


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## CowboyRam (Dec 13, 2015)

Palmettokat said:


> Mark, Charleston is about 90 miles south of me. (Note a good Southerner never claims to be north, the other guy is south of you. No insult meant, to those who live "north". ) We have many many people who move here for two big reasons: lower cost of living mostly due to less government and the other is snow. They pushed or blew it for years. They fought it in so many ways. Here it is a Holiday for us. Yes we shut down when we get a heavy snow of an inch. lol
> 
> I do think snow is pretty but no idea how those in heavy snow country handle it. Then heavy snow country worries little about hurricanes. Seems each area of this great county has their own special weather issue.


I would rather deal with snow than hurricanes. I can at least get up on my roof and push off the snow, I can't hold back all of that water that is brought in by hurricanes.


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## Palmettokat (Jul 10, 2017)

CowboyRam, you are right there! Guess the flooding that can come with Hurricane is much like an avalanche, does not hit all areas but where it does can be major and kill. Hurricane can unleash major destruction as has been seen in Houston and Puerto Rico most recently. Hugo was major for SC in 1989. Destruction to buildings was huge but trees was what made me cry. Saw miles of pines destroyed and hundred of year old live oaks. Said then in my life time the trees will not recover. However hurricanes don't hit any place almost ever year or at least ones of such damage.

One thing I have come to realize we prefer the devil we know. Whether it be snow, tornado, flooding or hurricanes. Think the same is true in all areas of our life. One reason people will stick with a certain brand for fear another brand will have worse issues.


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## r82230 (Mar 1, 2016)

Palmettokat said:


> Guess the flooding that can come with Hurricane is much like an avalanche, does not hit all areas but where it does can be major and kill.


Most folks don't build houses in areas subject to avalanches.  Whereas some folks seem to build in flood prone areas for some odd reason , then want the gover'm to bail them out to often it seems.

Back to regular schedule programing. 

Larry


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## Tx Jim (Jun 30, 2014)

r82230 said:


> Most folks don't build houses in areas subject to avalanches.  Whereas some folks seem to build in flood prone areas for some odd reason , then want the gover'm to bail them out to often it seems.
> 
> Back to regular schedule programing.
> 
> Larry


And then a once in 500 yr flood rears it's ugly face for one to determine they built there home in what is now turned into a flood plane. My barn I live in that I built up on higher ground flooded one night when it rained 12.5 '' in less than 4 hrs


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## swall01 (Jun 10, 2018)

vhaby, it wasnt that many years ago i remember texas guys hauling cows east and trading hay pound for pound to haul back. i would think thats still a raw deal but sometimes you have to make hard decisions just to survive.


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## StxPecans (Mar 3, 2018)

So I am thinking about planting somthing in the next week. I am short on hay to say the least. I have an area i cannot graze but i can bale. Have rain chances coming up maybe. Been thinking about some sort of cheap warm season grass crop and maybe get lucky and get rain on it let it grow enough for a good cutting before our first frost which is normally after november 1st or later.
Or was think about planting gulf ryegrass as it doesnt take cool weather to germinate. 
What do you think would be the best idea? 
I was also thinking about somthing i never seen before or talked about. But if i have growing grass, say ryegrass or somthing and i cant graze my cows in that area can a person mow down some let it dry as much as possible and bale is wet/green as long as my baler will do it and take it strait to my cows and feed it?
See i have my cows on 400 acres at one place but come october 1st i have to put them all on about 100 acres and i will not have enough grass possibly. If i have a field of grass can i just bale it green and take it to them each day? 
Not sure how wet of grass i can bale but say its ryegrass and i doubt i can bale it right behind the cutter but, if i cut it 2 or 3 days in advance i am prettu sure i can bale it then. And say cut a few acres a day and take a few acres of it to them a day.
Just asking a queation. To me it isnt that much work. Plus i also have another 100 acre orchard i thought i could do that with clover as i know clover is hard to dry down. I was thinking about broadcasting clover in an orchard before harvest and my harvestors would work it into the ground, a seed rep told me they do just that in mexico. Seems like a pretty good idea.


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## Ray 54 (Aug 2, 2014)

Always interesting to see different sides of the same job.

Running cattle on 2500+ acres and a good year 90 cows and no hay, just a protein supplement to help them though fall with dry weathered grass until enough rain to start a new crop of grass. The last 6 years been tough to feed hay and keep 60 cows. The worst is little rains to wash all nutrients from dry grass but no get new grass growing.

StxPecans I think the trying unproven ideas is a good thing as long as you don't put yourself out so far as to put your whole operation at risk. As for drying hay,there were some dairies in the region that chopped alfalfa almost every day and hauled it to the cows. But that uses different equipment than you have so may not be something you can do.

Another thing to consider would be feeding grain as cheap as corn and soybeans are. But also takes special equipment as well as more up front cash. But we are all gambling it is going to rain soon.

May all of you suffering drought see the possibility to do something different that will see you through the bad times.


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## Palmettokat (Jul 10, 2017)

My area is steady seeing more and more flooding. Reason is all the construction. Even with the required retention ponds heavy rains are hitting the rivers to fast as there is less and less woods to filter and slow the rain water's run to the rivers. Rivers are getting filled so fast no way do they drain near as fast as they fill.

I grew up with houses having wood floors and at least two feet off the ground. Houses here eight feet off the ground have been common for hundreds of years near rivers and even in big fields for cooling reasons. Now built on concrete slabs and maybe four inches to eight inches above grade. Makes no sense. But the builders are tract builders now with no idea the history of the area.


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