There are enough cattle in the Dakotas affected by this dry spell to send cattle markets tumbling off their early summer rally.
In any event, a good steward of resources and cattle will take this seriously enough to start thinking about some things that we need to be watching for weather and market-wise as we move through the rest of the summer and fall.
Protecting your natural resources is a key part of management during dry spells but so is cattle management.
I think the biggest part of managing cattle through a dry spell is to recognize that the lag-time between when the grass is used up and cattle start showing visible signs of distress is about 30-45 days.
A good manager should be watching the condition of the grass to make management decision, not the condition of the cows or calves.
The main thing an outfit should be thinking about is preparing a marketing plan for this fall, in preparation for many cattle to be flooding the market starting in late-August or September.
A calf implant can easily add 25 pounds of weaning weight to those calves for a cost of about $2.50 per calf.
Another thing to consider in a drought situation is early weaning calves.
This typifies the beginning of the fall calf run which, runs through November with fresh weaned calves from this year.
Avoiding the fall calf run with fresh weaned calves can add as much as 30 percent value to the current years’ calf crop.