Starting to sell because of drought in North East Texas

[meat_fire]

Guess I start selling some of my cows this weekend as pasture has very little grass left. Just wondering who else been selling around north east Texas?

Hoping to just have to sell some now and then have some milo stalks to bale to make it through the winter with what is left. This area looking the worse I seen it in a long long time.

Hay looking very short here. Usually get 3 cutting somtimes 4 on a good year, not sure if I get 2 or not, first cutting was 1/3 or normal yield. Good friend of mine fertilized his bermuda field pretty heavy. They baled it a few weeks ago, said he figure he has 100 dollars a bale in fertilizer in what they baled up. He sure hoping to get another cutting.

 

[feeder]

I talked to a rancher friend in NW Texas this morning. He said he is thinking of selling some of his cows on next Superior sale. I feel bad for his family, they have such good genetics in their herd. The fire destoyed so much and now it is so dry. My thoughts are with all that are having a tough time.

 

[efb]

I know the feeling, I plan to take some bottom end heifers to Winnsboro Friday. My neighbor sold a load each in Emory, Longview and Winnsboro last week. I'll check with him to see how they sold and report back. He did say there were 4 lines going into Emory Saturday and he was in line an hour to unload. It's looking grim. I'm a registered purebred breeder and I've spent the last hour here on the computer trying to decide which and how many cows to sell if it comes to that, and I am about 2 weeks from it without some rain. We usually don't have to deal with drought in this country but this is our second year. I feel for those that have to live with it more often.

 

[Anonymous]

I talked to a rancher friend in NW Texas this morning. He said he is thinking of selling some of his cows on next Superior sale. I feel bad for his family, they have such good genetics in their herd. The fire destoyed so much and now it is so dry. My thoughts are with all that are having a tough time.

I watched some of the Texas bred cows sell yesterday on Superior-- looked like the price was down quite a bit compared to what they have been bringing up here--but they also seemed like they were all down some...Lot of cows from Texas, Nebraska, and Colorado- and it sounded like they were nosaleing quite a few.....

 

[meat_fire]

EFB,
That the same thing I been doing too, trying to figure who goes first and who stays. I had already done my normal culling back in April so all these are ones I really wanted to keep another year or so.
I was at Emory on July1 hauling my step son's cattle and lines were not too bad, but looked like the pens were full. I will be going to Pilot Point this weekend.
I do rember I think it was 1996 maybe 97 having a bad drought that year, then about mid July we started getting rain every few days and things really changed. But I think main problem we going to have this year is everything was stessed so bad from last year and so many (including myself) over grazed their pasture and grass did not come out like it should in the spring and the grass just is not there.

 

[efb]

Meat_fire,

I talked to my neighbor last night. All three loads last week sold ok. He didn't feel the calves were down much if any. Some pairs sold for $950 which he was satisfied with. Guess I'll go ahead and haul mine to Winnsboro in the morning. My grass is going backwards fast now. I have a rented pasture 9 miles South of me that is getting short, but water is the biggest problem. I may have to start hauling water in 30 days or less. An inch or two of rain will bring the grass back pretty quick in this country, but it isn't going to help much with the ponds. Wish I had a couple of Soapweeds windmills. Good luck.