Published: August 18, 2006 10:03 am            

Drought, lack of hay force ranchers to sell

MCALESTER, Okla. — Pete Lane of Ashland, Okla., sat inside his pickup, pulling a stock trailer loaded with cattle into the McAlester Union Stockyards.

Behind him, a long line of trucks and trailers filled with mooing cattle snaked from the stockyard’s holding pens to its main entrance.

Nearly all the ranchers questioned during the stockyards' Tuesday sale said they would have liked to keep the cattle, but they were selling them because of the drought.

While most still have access to drinking water for their cattle through ponds, small lakes or creeks, the lack of moisture is causing problems in another way - little or no grass or hay.

“We’ve got enough water and shade for a thousand head,” said Lane, of the P&J Lane Ranch in Ashland. “We don’t have grass.”

He can still remember the Dust Bowl from his younger days 70 years ago.

“This is the worst I’ve seen since 1936,” Lane said. “Then, we didn’t have the ponds and lakes like we have now. They had to drive cattle two or three miles to get water.”

The problem today is that not only the existing pastureland, but the anticipated hay crop for this winter has been severely affected by the lack of rain - there’s not been enough water for the grass and hay crops to grow.

“It’s burnt up,” Lane said. “We’re having about half a hay crop.”

The ranchers and cattle owners who are selling off part of their herds have greatly increased the number of cattle going through the stockyards for sale day.

Julie Grant co-owns McAlester Union Stockyards with her brother and sister, Mark Sherrill and Laura Sherrill.

As the trailers of cattle poured into the stockyards, she worked outside in the cattle pens.

“Our normal runs are from 400 to 500 on a sale day,” Grant said. “We’ll have 1,200 to 1,500 today. Usually, the fall runs don’t start this early."

Most sellers she’s talked with have given her the same reason for selling: “No grass.”

She said cattle prices have held up “pretty good.”

For example, “The very first of the 500-pound steers are bringing from $1.25 to $1.30 a pound,” she said. “That’s good, considering the big runs.”

Weather conditions have been better farther north, she said.

“I talked to a guy from Missouri and he said they had an abundance of hay,” she said.

Meanwhile, cattlemen were holding on to some of their cattle.

“There’ll have to be a lot that will have to sell from a third to a half of their herds,” Lane predicted.

Another rancher in the area is already feeding half his herd hay and grain every day because of the lack of grass, Lane said.

“He didn’t have enough grass” on 200 acres for the cattle, said Lane.

Roger Davis knows exactly what Lane means. He brought a load of cattle in from Hanna, in rural McIntosh County. He said a lot of cattlemen are cutting their herds because of the drought.

“If you don’t have hay, you can’t feed them,” he said. Davis had not originally planned to sell the cattle in the back of his trailer.

“If we had the hay, I would have kept them,” he said.

The Oklahoma Department of Agriculture daily updates a hay directory of farmers with hay to sell both in-state and out of state. To access the directory go to www.oda.state.ok.us and cliick on the Hay Directory links on the left side of the web page.

        

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