Rancher AJ Rausch can only explain managing a cattle herd in the current drought conditions one way.
Laura Edwards is the South Dakota State Climatologist.
“I really would not be surprised to see some further expansion in the drought area and also increasing severity or worsening conditions in the state, especially in the north central.” Edwards says some areas of the state have gotten less than half of their average rainfall for this time of year.
So not only are we looking at what are we going to do to get through the summer and fall, but further down the road we also have to think about winter feed coming up and how we’re going to make that happen.” During extreme drought conditions it becomes difficult to maintain traditional production techniques.
It requires grazing half of the ground and leaving half to recover for the next year.
Heather Gessner, who advises ranchers through the extension service suggests supplemental feed for livestock this summer.
So you’re taking a lot of that feed resource that you already, in theory, paid for through your land rent or your property taxes and those types of things, and you’re having to buy it again.” They’re looking at facing financial challenges the next couple of years as they have reduced numbers of animals to sell versus normal.-Heather Gessner Because of the drought many ranchers are selling off animals.
But as Gessner explains, it may take years to re build herds.
And they’re also looking at added expenses of buying hay and then when the rains do come back, because they always do eventually, we have that added stocking rate consideration.
And what that does is it provides a per head payment based on the number of animal units that could be grazing on the land.” There are other programs available to help ranchers with livestock deaths and water shortages as a result of the extreme drought conditions.