Drought prompts cattle sales in East Texas

Jul. 16—Prolonged drought conditions in Texas are forcing ranchers to evaluate and cull their herds earlier than normal this year.

Saturday, July 9, trailers stretched a mile in both directions from Emory Livestock Auction waiting to sell their cattle. This was the auction barn's sale following the Fourth of July holiday and attracted 527 sellers, brought in 3,494 head of mixed livestock, including 2,763 cattle, with 935 of those being breeding stock.

Emory is one of the smaller livestock auction barns in the area, running around 200 head on a normal sale day. It took around 17 hours to clear the auction block for that sale.

A long stretch between auction sales due to the holiday was one contributing factor to the long lines of livestock, however, prolonged drought conditions, the rising cost of feed and fuel, and fertilizer have some cattle producers culling their herds earlier than normal this year.

It's a buyers market right now for those who have larger operations and can afford to feed until next spring/summer. Right now, heavier-weight feeder calf prices are strong, and slaughter cattle prices are steady.

"It's like looking into a crystal ball and trying to decide what's gonna have the best outcome," said Rodney Taylor, a local rancher and feed store owner. "Especially for the smaller cattle operations."

Even the price of red fuel, diesel fuel used for farm and construction equipment and isn't taxed, has gone up.

"Red fuel is typically $1.30 less than what you purchase at the pump," Taylor said. "But now its only 30 cents cheaper. That's a huge leap in the cost. Before, I could fill up my tractor for $100 and now I'm spending around $250. That makes the price of mowing pastures and cutting exponentially higher."

Typically, cattle producers cull their cattle in the fall, sifting out canners, cutters, non-producers and yearlings. Canners are thin, emaciated cows which have lost muscles mass due to poor nutrition or health. Cutters are thin to moderate in flesh.

Cull cows have been identified as older barren cows, poor producers, non-producers or poor mothers not producing a good enough yearling or putting out enough milk for the calf to make it a better specimen.

Yearlings are typically sold to the feed lots in October or November and fed well over the winter to put more weight on them before they are sent to slaughter.

Cattle producers with smaller operations are already fearful of running out of grass.

Those with smaller stock ponds may also face issues of providing water to their herds.

In a June Crop and Weather report AgriLife Extension Agent Adam Russell said abnormally high temperatures and no rain had worsened drought conditions in East Texas.

According to Russell, pasture and rangeland conditions were poor to fair, subsoil and topsoil conditions were short.

Many producers that were able to get their first cuttings of hay, had yields far below average. Lack of rain and high fertilizer prices continue to be major concerns.

Joe Paschal, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension livestock specialist, Corpus Christi, and Vanessa Corriher-Olson, Ph.D., AgriLife Extension forage specialist in Overton, said dry weather, high temperatures and reduced inputs like fertilizer have inhibited warm-season grass production across much of Texas. Hay quantity and quality are down, while the cost to produce bales is up, and weather forecasts do not look favorable.

Pockets of the state have received decent moisture, they said, but high fertilizer prices have discouraged hay producers from making applications. As a result, hay baled was expected to be of lower quality.

Paschal said prices for supplemental feed like range cubes and hay have continued to increase. Range cubes reached $400 per ton, while round bales were starting to fetch $75 to $80. For weeks, AgriLife Extension agents have reported $80-plus bales in extremely dry areas of the state.

"Some cattle producers around the state have been culling their herds deeper to reduce stocking rates and "mouths to feed," Paschal said. But many more face declining grazing, tightening hay supplies and below-average bale production this season.

"People are baling, but it looks like this hay season could be one cutting, maybe two," he said. "There is hay being fed now, so the hay situation could be tough."

Most of East Texas is experiencing abnormally dry to moderate drought conditions, according to the drought monitor map of Texas produced by the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska. Areas in south Central Texas were showing mostly severe and exceptional drought conditions, which translates into major to exceptional crop and pasture loss and widespread water shortages and restrictions.

Grasses and crop growth are stunted under abnormally dry conditions, and damages begin to show as moderate drought sets in, according to the center. Extremely high temperatures are exacerbating the moisture deficit for plants, including pasture grasses.

Corriher-Olson said weather outlooks suggest Texas will slip further into the drought. Weather systems during hurricane season could change that, but producers with grazing should be implementing contingency plans if they have not already.

"I really don't have a feel for how many producers are adjusting their grazing management as a result of drought and high fertilizer prices," she said. "It gets harder to avoid overstocking when forage production is limited. But it puts a lot of producers in a really tight spot when they don't have the hay or grazing to try and maintain their herd."

Both Corriher-Olson and Paschal expect hay supplies to be tight and low quality going into winter if conditions do not reverse soon.

Drought and fertilization — each of those factors alone can put a dent in hay production, Corriher-Olson said, but both at the same time can be disastrous for both quality and yields. High temperatures also increase Bermuda grass's fiber content, making it less digestible for cattle.

Fertilizer prices have softened some, Corriher-Olson said, and producers could potentially fertilize ahead of a promising storm system that might provide moisture for a cutting. But cuttings are best at the beginning and end of the season when temperatures begin to decline.

One East Texas producer she talked to is forgoing fertilization this summer to invest input costs into cool-season forage production, she said.

Corriher-Olson said producers should be making decisions regarding stockpiled forages and hay supplies with an expectation of very high bale prices, especially for quality hay, just to cover the cost of fertilizer, pesticide and herbicide applications and diesel.

Paschal said producers should be planning for ways to stretch available nutrition — whether that is finding alternative feed like cotton seed, purchasing failed corn crops or using supplemental feeds with a limiter to reduce the number of trips to feed.

Hay production conditions are better in states east of Texas, he said, and bales are likely to be moved into Texas or cattle are expected to be moved to better pastures. He suggests cattle producers test bales for their nutritional value, whether purchased or produced. Tests can provide information that will better guide cattle supplementation, improving the digestibility and nutritional value of that hay.

Producers can reach out to AgriLife Extension agriculture agents in their county for assistance with hay testing, Paschal said.

"It's going to be tough," he said. "There is a lot of hay cows will eat when there is nothing else, but it doesn't mean it is good. There are ways to stretch a cow's nutritional needs, but the bottom line is getting the right amount of protein and energy in her."

Anderson County Extension Agent Truman Lamb said grasshoppers and Bermudagrass stem maggot are also threats to this year's hay fields. The Bermudagrass stem maggot is a relatively new pest of Bermuda grass grown for hay. The larva or maggot feeds in the top of the Bermuda grass stem causing the top one to two leaves to turn brown or white and the stem to stop growing. Infested fields are stunted, and yield is reduced.

And hay is not the only livestock feed source that may be scarce in the coming months. Lamb said that one of the county cotton producers said if he didn't get some rain in the next two weeks his crop "would go the other way."

"All of this spells future trouble for the consumer," Lamb said.