Water concerns rising as cattle die in record Texas drought – Ranchers ‘exiting the industry in large numbers due to losses’
By BETSY BLANEY, Associated Press
14 July 2011 LUBBOCK, Texas – The unrelenting Texas drought has produced a cruelly ironic twist: cattle dying from too much water. Agriculture officials in parched Texas said Wednesday there are no hard numbers on how many head of cattle have died but reports of deaths from too much water or too little are showing up across the nation’s leading cattle production state. “They over drink because they’re thirsty,” said Dr. Robert Sprowls of the Texas Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory in Amarillo. “Once they fill up on water it happens pretty quickly.” Producers are losing cattle after moving them from withered pastures where water tanks have dried up. Once in new pastures, cattle that die take in too much water too quickly. The animals die within minutes and their carcasses are found near the stock tanks from which they were drinking, Ted McCollum, a beef cattle specialist with Texas AgriLife Extension Service in Amarillo, said. Texas is coming off its driest nine-month period ever and its hottest June on record. More than 90 percent of the state is in the two most severe drought stages. The cattle deaths are occurring earlier, in part because of lack of forage growth in pastures. “We are seeing more incidents of heat stress in cattle,” he said. “More incidents of death and problems with health.” As with humans, water intoxication can occur when there’s too much water in the body, which disrupts electrolyte balance in cells. Death can occur. Typically an average cow grazing green forage consumes as much as 8.4 gallons of water a day from it. This year, because drought precluded forage growth and there’s been a relatively low intake of dry forage, daily water consumption is around 0.6 gallons. That’s why stock tanks are so important, especially with this drought’s searing temperatures. […] Also, hot, sunny days can warm stagnant water and produce blue-green algae blooms, some species of which are toxic. Ingesting the algae or the toxins from them can be fatal. The dead animals are usually found close to the watering site. The situation isn’t likely to improve any time soon. Weather forecasters predict the drought in Texas won’t diminish until at least the end of September. Ranchers, many of whom are culling their herds, are either providing supplemental fed to their cattle or taking them to other states to graze.
Water concerns rising as cattle die in dry Texas
By Veronica Zaragovia
16 July 2011 SAN ANTONIO (AFP) – A record drought is forcing Texas cattle ranchers to send their cows to slaughter because it’s too costly to keep buying feed for herds finding little forage in parched pastures. “If I knew it would rain in the next two months, we’d buy hay or feed and carry these cows on,” said Pete Bonds, who raises about 7,000 cows on his nearly 4,000-acre (1,600-hectare) ranch near Fort Worth. The problem for ranchers like Bonds is that “only God knows when it’s going to rain.” And if conditions don’t improve in the next few weeks, he may have to cull as many as 1,000 cows from his herd. […] The first six months of this year have been the driest since records began to be kept in 1895. Pastures are filled with patches of dry dirt. The grasses that are still alive crackle under foot. And the drought which began in October has sparked one of the worst wildfire seasons on record. More than 13,000 wildfires have burned more than 3.2 million acres in Texas where the situation has become so bad that many counties even banned Independence Day fireworks. “Ranchers have experienced wildfires, long term drought, severe flooding, exceptionally cold winters and high feed costs for several years,” said Bill Hyman, executive director of the Independent Cattlemen’s Association of Texas. Their endurance is starting to wear thin, he said and they are “exiting the industry in large numbers due to losses.” “In Texas, you can’t find anyone in agriculture who’s not suffering,” added Gene Hall, a spokesperson of the Texas Farm Bureau. “The wheat crop is already toast, corn is in serious trouble and the cattle situation is very bad.” One of the broadest impacts has been on cotton, because Texas accounts for nearly half of the US crop. “Cotton conditions have never been lower than they are right now for any time in the growing season,” said Brad Rippey, a meteorologist with the US Department of Agriculture. “It’s been so hot that even irrigation in some cases is not helping the situation because of the intense heat and the low humidity. So cotton is in big trouble early in the year and it would take a major weather pattern change, which does not appear to be on the horizon,” to save the crop. […]
