2023-08-10 16:49:40
The brown and black cattle of Texasbeloved symbols of the Lone Star State, walk through parched grass and stand in dried-up ponds as their ranchers struggle to provide them with enough food.
Calves at the market in Clovis, New Mexico
For the second summer in a row, the drought and the extremes heats are threatening the health of cattle in Texas – the top US beef-producing state – and prompting some ranchers to consider thinning their herds to save money on feed and hay, Reuters reports.
“The grass just isn’t growing and mainly because of the drought,” said rancher David Henderson. “Now we’re getting into August, and it’s usually the hottest, driest time of the year … and the only thing I can think of that requires selling cows.” Henderson, 62, runs a herd of about 150 cows at the Tennessee Colony in East Texas and said he sold approximately 30 cows in 2022 due to the drought.
Dry conditions last year led East Texas ranchers to sell more than 2.66 million head of cattle from January 2022 through August 2022 — an increase of more than 480,000 head compared to the same period a year earlier, according to the Texas Farm Bureau.
Texas State climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon predicts that extreme heat caused by global warming will become the norm.
“Well, certainly over the next few decades the trends will continue,” Nielsen-Gammon said. “This kind of heat will become normal in the summer for Texas. And that, in addition, means that extreme heat will be much hotter and much more severe.”
Drought, heat and food shortages affect almost every aspect of the livestock industry – how much milk calves get, how cows get fat, how much they reproduce and how much that coveted steak will cost.
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