Drought Aftermath: Long-term Decisions

from Red Angus Magazine - September 2022

Celebrating Half a Century of Canadian Red Roundup

Making difficult decisions in the wake of a drought

By Lisa Bryant, Communications Specialist

A drought can bring some tough decisions to your doorstep, and those choices can impact your operation for decades to come. Do you feed through it? Do you sell off? What does this mean for next year?

We asked two cattlemen to help discuss the dilemma producers face. On page 24 of the July/August issue, we began the dialogue with some issues impacting ranches during the drought. In this part of our Drought Management Series, we’ll consider options that will impact your operation for years to come and help you make good decisions to set yourself up for recovery. We asked Colorado rancher Joe Hatch and Nebraska feedlot owner and cattleman Craig Uden some pressing questions and they’ll share their advice below on drought recovery.

If you are in a drought now, your grass is probably short, your hay supply may be low, feed prices are suffering from inflation and your options are becoming more limited as we set up for fall and winter. Most livestock experts say it never pays to feed through a drought, but is that the right decision in 2022?

Do I feed through a drought?

The decision to supplement your cattle can vary, Hatch said. “From an individual business standpoint, think about your financial position. If it’s really good and you have the cash, you can feed cows,” he said. However, with interest rates climbing, he cautions producers to be careful on how much they borrow. “We are willing to feed cows a little more than we would have been the past two or three years because of where we are sitting in the cattle market cycle. In the next couple of years where inventory is really declining, calf prices and bred cow prices are going to get pretty high, so we feel like this might be a drought where we could feed hay and it would be a good decision. Most of the time, trying to feed your way through a drought is not a good decision,” Hatch said.

“But, we are possibly a year away from record high prices, so you might be able to spend a few hundred dollars a head on hay and end up with a few thousand in a short time if you can make that work from a cash flow standpoint.”

Should I keep or cull?

“If you sell out all your cows in a drought and so do all your neighbors, you’re going to have to sell them at a discount and buy them back at a premium because that’s what everybody else is doing,” Hatch said.

He is anticipating higher cow prices, but a continued climb in interest rates. “If you’re going to lock yourself into a fiveyear fixed loan on cattle, I think you really need to look at what calves will be going for in the years forward and run an amortization calculator to make sure you understand what the interest is going to cost on those cows.”

Craig Uden Joe Hatch

A calf’s growth is dependent on cattle being managed on an inclining plane of nutrition, and if a drought disrupts that, cattle producers will not see calves that perform to their genetic potential and carcass results will often disappoint.

In Hatch’s business plan, he culls yearlings first because he’s in an area where he can sell feeder cattle within 200 miles five days a week. “We knew we were going into a drought this year, so we intentionally stocked lighter and are shipping yearlings 45 days earlier than initially planned,” he said.

Older cows that are lame or have other problems are the second to go. He also advises producers to evaluate nearby areas that are not currently in drought conditions. “If they are wanting to buy pairs, you might be able to sell younger pairs for quite a bit more money than an old, crippled cow.”

Uden has decided to keep the genetics built up in his cows this year. “The value of animals is worth a lot more than it was a year ago,” he said. “So, I think the main thing is to protect the factory. You must protect the cow. You’ve got too much invested in her right now not to continue moving that forward.”

How will a drought affect carcass traits and reproduction?

Uden has already seen disruptions in grading from the 2021 drought in the western United States.

He explained why that has happened. “A calf is born with so much genetic potential and so much intramuscular fat. If that calf has to use its intramuscular fat to stay alive because it’s not getting enough nutrients from mom, it’s going to pull some intramuscular fat out of its system to stay alive.” And, that fat can’t be regenerated into marbling.

Uden said growth is dependent on cattle being managed on an inclining plane of nutrition, and if a drought disrupts that, cattle producers will not see calves that perform to their genetic potential and carcass results will often disappoint.

The best way to avoid this is to wean early, he said. “It’s just as easy to wean it rather than haul feed out to the pasture.”

In addition to lower carcass grades, drought also brings reproductive repercussions.

“In 2012, we had a really bad drought here,” Hatch said. “The heifers born in the spring of 2012 have the worst reproduction of any set of cows that we have. Drought isn’t a one-year thing. The effects of it can last 10 to 12 years. Those 2012 cows will have poor fertility for the rest of their lives.”

How can I repair my forage?

Hatch said the biggest thing a producer should focus on during and after the drought is forage. “We are a forage-based business. Not all cow-calf operations are, but we

are,” he said. “Our No. 1 goal is to protect our rangeland so we can still be productive years after the drought.”

He advocates for intensive rotational grazing when grass is dry. With 7.17 inches of rain in northwestern Colorado the past year and an estimated 20%-30% drop in forage, he’s struggling to keep grass ahead of his herd, but he’s adapting his grazing strategy so forage doesn’t become a long-term issue.

“In a good year, the rest and recovery period of your pastures during the growing season is really important,” Hatch said. He gives plants a long rest to regrow after grazing, which allows nutrients to be put back down into roots.

Good ground cover helps to retain some moisture in the ground and helps to avoid evaporation. He said soil suffers without it. In times of drought, he said he’ll often get no rain for a long period, and then suddenly, a hard rain will cause soil capping, topsoil runoff and water erosion. Ground cover also helps this, plus reduces damage from wind erosion.

Hatch keeps track of both forage quality and quantity on each pasture annually. By doing so, it makes drought management significantly easier, he said. He also keeps a tight rein on weed prevention so that already damaged pastures don’t become a weed problem for years to come.

Both Hatch and Uden recommend delayed turnout after a drought to give grass a fighting chance to recoup. Uden used this practice this spring since his area was already in drought conditions after 2021. He turned out both cows and bulls on June 1 – a good two to three weeks later than normal.

This action gives spring growth extra time to recover and develop better root systems. Delaying turnout by one to two weeks can increase forage production 10% or more when soil moisture is limited, according to a University of Nebraska report written by Dr. Rick Rasby. Rasby suggested that producers could delay by feeding carryover hay, grazing meadows, using alfalfa growth or grazing winter cereal grain pastures.

Experience can be the best teacher when it comes to surviving a drought. If your area doesn’t regularly go through a drought, look for advice and reach out to producers that often do. After a drought, take notes and evaluate what works or doesn’t work in your operation. Then, take the time to develop long-range plans for managing your operation through the next drought. //