by Heather Smith Thomas

Despite some well received summer rains in parts of the country, much of the High Plains is still in a drought. During a drought, cattlemen face tough decisions, and must alter their management schemes in order to preserve their pasture and ultimately their way of life. Dr. Barry Dunn, Range Livestock Production Specialist at South Dakota State University, offers these tips for drought management.

The first step in drought management is to destock pastures—taking part or all of the grazing animals off-in order to protect the pastures from the damage of overgrazing. This can be done in several ways — by selling part of the cattle, renting pasture somewhere else and early weaning.

“Early weaning reduces the forage demand of the herd by stopping lactation,” says Dunn. A dry cow needs less feed, and the lesser amount eaten by dry cows is equivalent to about a 20 percent destocking of the cow herd.

“Another option is to run younger livestock. They are smaller and though they have higher nutrient demands (because they are still growing), they eat less. A 1000-pound heifer eats a lot less than a 1400 pound cow,” says Dunn. Keeping younger animals and selling some of the older ones can help stretch your feed.
The young cows have the most future value. “Everything above age 5 or 6 should be sold before you sell younger ones. The young ones also have the best (most recent) genetics, and have a lifetime ahead of them to get through the drought and pay the expenses of keeping them.” An older cow has less chance to do that.

Another option is to purchase substitute feed, to replace or supplement the reduced pasture forage. If you do that, it’s best to drylot the cattle and lock them out of the pastures. Otherwise, they keep nibbling at the scarce grass and can damage the pasture.

Tim Stanton, Ph.D., Extension Feedlot Specialist, Colorado State University, says if you can’t find hay at a reasonable price, you can “limit feed” a high energy diet, putting cows in a dry lot or a small sacrificial pasture and feeding 8 to 10 pounds of corn per head and only about 3 to 4 pounds of hay. “Your cost per unit of energy is more favorable. You can also feed a protein supplement. It depends on the quality of the hay,” says Stanton.

Another option is to use low quality roughage, like straw, with a good protein supplement, or treat straw with anhydrous ammonia to increase protein levels. Unfortunately, in a drought year, straw may be scarce, too, and not as economical as on a normal year. By the time you get straw hauled in and add another $15 to $20 per ton for anhydrous ammonia treatment, you might as well look at higher quality forages, says Stanton.

“Some ranchers who have a little high quality hay have been selling it on the horse market and are then able to buy back more tonnage of cow hay,” he says. Each producer must find the best way to make it work for his own situation.

Some people have used baled cornstalks. Grazing cornstalks is another option, or corn fields that were too poor to harvest. “The nitrates can be a big concern in this situation—grazing corn that wasn’t harvested. The plants don’t grow well because of the drought, but still have all the fertilizer that’s normally put on to raise 120 bushels per acre,” says Stanton.

It’s always wise to check for nitrates, even in the hay you buy, along with checking the nutritional values. “What makes me sad is when I get calls from people who bought hay but didn’t check it for nitrates, and it kills a bunch of cows. A nitrate sample can be checked for less than $10,” he says.

Another strategy, when hay is scarce or high priced, is to graze annuals, like cereal grain crops (rather than harvesting them as grain) or to plant annuals like millet, sorghum or sudan grass that can be grazed or put up as hay. They don’t take as much water to grow as do perennial plants, since they put all their energy into leaves and stalks rather than having to make a root system.

Dunn says you can graze winter wheat, winter rye, spring wheat, oats, barley, etc. “For a cow-calf or seedstock producer, grazing a wheat field can make you more money than buying feed. The annual plant’s response to moisture is quite good.” If you have some crop ground, planting an annual cereal grass, rather than corn or something else, and being willing to graze it, can help get you through the drought, says Dunn.
“These are not very expensive to plant. Oats or sudan grass are not very expensive at all, and if you get a little moisture, you will get tremendous production.” This can extend or save your permanent pastures.

“It takes courage, to plant into dry ground. But if you can rent a no-till drill from the Conservation District, so you don’t have to dry out the ground worse by plowing, this can be a good strategy. Last year we made this recommendation and some people tried it. We got enough moisture in just a few showers, that they were getting sudan grass four to six feet tall. It doesn’t take nearly as much moisture as permanent grass,” says Dunn. ©