Thirty years ago, the weather on Annie Doerr’s family ranch felt reliable. Now that she’s taken over from her parents, it’s been anything but. In recent years, drought has made finding good pastureland for beef cattle to graze increasingly difficult.
“I always pray for a normal year,” she said, “which I don’t really know what that looks like anymore.”
Drought has affected operations at her 500-head beef cattle farm in Creighton, Nebraska, less than an hour from the South Dakota border.
In any given year, the nation experiences dry periods without rainfall. Livestock producers mitigate the effects by providing additional water sources directly to animals or crops, such as water lines to livestock or irrigation for crops. Droughts occur when dry conditions last longer than usual and water isn’t replenished to crops, groundwater, lakes or other bodies of water, resulting in water-supply problems, according to the United States Geological Survey.
During droughts, Doerr said she weans her calves off milk earlier than usual, a common practice in dry years, but one that can also put young cattle at higher risk of dying. She also slows the growth of her herd, and spends more money on sourcing feed for cattle.
This same scenario has played out again and again across the nation’s major cattle-producing states.
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Categories: South Dakota, Livestock, Beef Cattle, Weather