Cattle and sheep herds are being culled or completely liquidated on West Texas ranches as drought and heat bake away vegetation on the rocky hills and once fertile valleys. Many acres were parched by wildfires, and some rangeland never came out of winter dormancy.
"We are starting to cutting real deep on everything," said Lad Linthicum, a lifetime rancher at Barnhart, 52 miles southwest of San Angelo. "We want to keep the cows that did breed back. We also have some young heifers that were set aside to breed last spring before it turned so dry."
The Linthicum Ranch, with headquarters at Barnhart, is located in Irion, Crockett and Schleicher counties. Lad and son, Gene II, oversee the operation with the help of some ranch hands, several four-wheelers and two airplanes.
"I believe this is the driest warm spell I've ever seen. It has been 11 months since receiving measurable rainfall on most of our country," Lad said. "In comparison to the sevenyear drought of the 1950s, back then it rained here and there, but not often enough to make any grass."
On Tuesday, San Angelo racked up its 84th day of 100-degree highs for the year, well beyond the previous record of 60 days. Rainfall to date for the year was 4.56 inches, a third of the normal precipitation for the first eight months of the year.
Pastures around Barnhart still have some old grass that grew in 2009 when it rained often, he said, but it's not good anymore. Livestock are given protein supplement every other day or so.
Cattle herd liquidation, driven by lack of pasture grass and dry dirt water tanks on many Concho Valley ranches, have driven up Producers Livestock Auction weekly sales receipts.
"Our runs have tripled in the last six months when compared to last year," said Charley Christensen, producers general manager. "Besides what has sold through the sale ring, there is unknown numbers of cattle sold off ranches through other 'country trades' which would definitely more than triple the overall cattle numbers percentage-wise coming off ranches because of the drought."
He said it is hard to tell what's left or who has cattle still on their ranch."There are a lot of people who have shipped every cow they owned. Some of the smaller ranchers have most likely shipped whole herds," Christensen said.
He said even the bigger ranches started selling the older cows first, but now they have started selling middle age cows and young cows.
"We are selling bred heifers and hoping we can keep 3- and 4-year-old cows for a base herd," said Christensen, who also manages the Cargile Family Ranches.
"If there is a blessing hidden in favor of cattle ranchers, it's a good market price for their livestock as they bring them to the sale," Christensen said. "The down side of forced sell-off is many ranches are bringing their foundation production cows to town. It will take years to rebuild a cow herd."
Producers Livestock, 1311 North Bell in San Angelo, is the largest cattle market in Texas. Weekly cattle sales are every Thursday, and Fridays if necessary. The firm, also known as the nation's major sheep market, has regular sheep and goat sales every Tuesday, followed by a Wednesday sale when necessary.
"For four weeks of mid-May to mid-June, receipts averaged right at 11,000 head weekly," said Benny Cox, producers sheep and goat sales manager. "Lots of ewes and nanny goats passed through the sale ring - our 'baby factories' - and they are leaving our area, never to return."
It's a somewhat different scenario for the cattle. Not all the cattle are going to slaughter. Some are going to pasture in East Texas or some other region, and a majority of Texas cattle are being purchased and shipped to North and South Dakota, Christensen said.
He said West Texas cattle shipped north go through much stress as they adjust to a different environment.
"It's green and there's plenty of water, but our cattle are raised in rugged terrain and they are a little bit overwhelmed when they arrive up there," he said.
As cattle producers make culling decisions due to the drought, they face a string of the same types of problems they faced in the spring and summer of 1996 when Texas went through another big drought, said Dr. David Anderson, a livestock economist at Texas A&M University in College Station.
"However, market conditions and expectations of future prices were much different than today," he said.
"Today, cull cow and calf prices are much stronger even though we face higher grain and forage prices," Anderson said. "What is the same now as in 1996 are the economic and financial analysis tools and how they should be used to make a sound disinvestment or investment decision for breeding cattle."
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, cattle inventory is at a record-low 99.96 million cattle and calves. It's the lowest midyear inventory since 1973. The number of all cows and heifers that have calved at 40.6 million head is down 1 percent from 2010. The 2011 calf crop is expected to be 35.5 million head, also down 1 percent from last year.
Cattle and calves on feed for slaughter market in the United States for feedlots with capacity of 1,000 or more head totaled 10.5 million head on July 1, according to the USDA's National Agricultural Statistics Service. The inventory was 4 percent above July 1, 2010.America's per capita beef consumption was 59.7 pounds last year. That's the lowest since tracking records started in the 1950s. Per capita consumption is not a measure of beef demand but rather a measure of supply, since everything that is produced is consumed.
The measure of demand is the price paid for those 59.7 pounds of beef, according to Drovers Cattle Network."But tighter supplies and higher prices can't continue indefinitely," writes cattle network editor Greg Henderson. "At some point, analysts agree, we may price beef out of the domestic market."
Analysts believe beef production will continue at or above last year in the near-term as more cattle are pushed into feed yards as a result of the drought.In the meantime, a few ranchers hanging around the sale barn recently said they will continue to feed their core herd, keep a watch on the skies and pray for rain.
"We are another day closer to the next big rain," said Benny Cox, who also is president of San Angelobased Texas Sheep & Goat Raisers' Association. "Pray for a disturbance to our south; hurricane season is still upon us."
Christensen believes the bare soils left by the wildfires will allow more runoff when the next big rainfall comes and the rivers and lakes will fill again.
"We have got to remain optimistic," he said.
At Linthicum's Barnhart ranch, the dry part of Spring Creek runs in front of the headquarters while the Schleicher County ranch is located on the dry part of Dove Creek. "So, when it rains a lot, we contribute to the water shed and the Concho River," Lad said."If we can make it through September, I think it will rain."
Jerry Lackey writes about agriculture. Contact him at jlackey@wcc.net or 325-949-2291.
