It's so hot...

[Southern Yeoman]

…I saw two trees fighting over a dog. 2010 is right whipping my tail. The winter was pretty rough and now this heat wave and drought (it rains everywhere except on my place) is bogging me down.

Compared to most, my complaints are minor. I haven’t run out of water and I have hay in the barn, although that’s supposed to be for wintertime. It’s just too hot out there after 1300 to work without offending myself or falling out, so I’m bored and feel the need to grumble.

I’ve lived in Arizona and West Texas for a time, so I know what heat and dry is, but I’ve never been challenged to raise stock in those conditions. I recently finished Kelton’s “The Time it Never Rained”. What a test the people in that story had.

This makes me wonder how folks get through the tough times. I wonder if you all would oblige me in sharing some of your hardest weather experiences in cattle, particularly summertime. How about some of you Texans or Aussies? I’m sure your stories will make everybody feel a little better off until the weather breaks. Appreciate you.

 

[TexasBred]

Same old story down here. Always just hot as the hingest of he&& and usually dry. I can always find air conditioning. I'd rather hear the Yanks talk about how they survive winters. Now that is an "art".

 

[Jogeephus]

I think the worst year for me was 2008. It wouldn't rain for anything and it was just hot. Ponds dried up, creeks were getting down to trickles and to top it off some of my shallow wells that watered the cattle went dry. I figured this was no big deal since I had a 1000 gallon nurse tank but I didn't have a true appreciation for how much water cattle required until I learned I had to fill this puppy up twice a day. This sucked so I paid a guy to punch down a semi-deep well to fix this problem only to have it struck by lightning in three weeks welding the casing and the pipe into an underground mess that wouldn't pump water. So I went back to hauling water again until I got another well drilled. It was a lovely year and I think I just produced write offs. Looking back on it I think I would have been bettter off selling most of the cows cause you just can't win if mother nature is not on your side.

 

[Red Bull Breeder]

I been a hanging around this part of the country all my life. This is just a regular Northwest Arkansas summer. Seen it lots worse.

 

[MO_cows]

Well this didn't happen to me personally but someone I know quite well lives in New Mexico and raises registered Corriente cattle and went thru the extended drought they had for several years in the Southwest. From 2000 thru 2006 or 7 they were very dry with some extended periods of zero moisture. Their grazing conditions are pretty tough even in a good year! I think their average precip is less than a foot a year. He sold off cows but still the drought went on. Finally it came to the point where he had to do something drastic or sell all the cows. So he bought some hay. He stocked up on propane. He went out and found a nice big patch of cholla cactus, fired up his propane burner and burned the spines off the cholla, then scattered some hay in the cactus. He said it took his cows one day to figure it out. While they were picking for the hay they discovered the spines were off the cactus and started eating it. So every morning for at least 3 months, he headed out across his land and found a likely patch of cholla and burnt it. He said the cows heard him, smelled or saw the smoke and they would soon come running. He was able to hang onto the core of his herd that way and not go out of business.

 

[Ryder]

A few days ago they were running that documentary on the television about the last great depression and the dust bowl. Now those farmers caught in that dust bowl drought had problems. No money, no rain, no grass. It was terrible.
I knew one older fellow that remembered it well. His warning was always, "Don't overgraze."

I am thankful that I have never experienced anything like that and hope I never do. But you never know.
I think things go around in cycles and you never know when another is due. Maybe not just like that but in some fashion.

 

[john250]

Texans or Aussies[/color]? I’m sure your stories will make everybody feel a little better off until the weather breaks. Appreciate you.

Indiana here, but hey, everyone has bad weather.
I had to go back and look up the data at the NWS (Natl Weather Service).
April 5, 2007 began seven days of freezing weather around here. Freezes, not frosts.
That freeze cost us 70% of the 1st hay cutting. Then the weather turned dry and there was no second cutting. Yikes.
In that winter ('07-08) we spent dearly for feed, and diesel fuel was pushing $6 so we paid dearly to get it here. And, the cow market was tanking.
A perfect storm of woes.
If I had sold the herd in March 2007, I'd be living in the islands. Or maybe not.

I had to look up the weather records to make this post. My grandad had a phenomenal memory for weather. He told me about 1936-37. Dad has stories too. From a keds point of wiew.

 

[JHH]

Hot here but is raining all the time and making it like a sona (sp) Granddad told me stories of the depression and dust bowl. He said as a kid he remembered the neighbors would all bring there cows over to get water at their house and the well was pumped dry twice ( once morning and once night) a day and would fill back up. Must have an underground stream or something. I still use that well to water some of my cows but I have never pumped it dry.It just has a wind mill and hand pump and no electric around.

 

[Santas and Duhram Reds]

we've cut down trees before to feed the cows.

 

[JHH]

we've cut down trees before to feed the cows.

Yea nothing like having cows trained to come to the sound of a chainsaw being fired up. Same here.

 

[HOSS]

It is so hot here I saw a crow trying to pull a worm out of the ground with an oven mitt on :lol: :clap: :roll:

 

[Southern Yeoman]

we've cut down trees before to feed the cows.

You know, that's something I would have never thought about, even though I see them clean off the lower branches. I'm a little slow. Thanks for the contingency tip!