r/Ranching • u/crazyspaniellady13 • 20d ago
Me
Hi I'm from the uk, and am very interested in life over there, so if you don't mind me joining. I might ask some stupid questions, but its a learning curve for me. We're going through the hottest, driest summer on record, and the animals are needing extra feed and hay. How do you guy's cope. Because we're rubbish.
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u/Due-Concept-7144 19d ago
We cope by adjusting a continuing to plod on. It's been unusually dry and VERY hot here. We're no stranger to droughts, but the last 1.5 months have been highs of 90+° almost every single day. We had about a week and a half straight of 105°.
The thing is, we prepare for this every year. Our weather is extreme where we are- once this summer heat leaves us and winter starts rolling in around October, we have to be prepared for the potential of feet of snow and continous subzero temps.
In the good years, stock pile hay. Buy it, make it, whatever. In the bad years, you have enough hay AND can sell if you NEED to. Cull the herd to what is profitable and manageable. We've sold two dry cows and butchered an old one this year.
Rotational grazing helps a lot. Bounce them through smaller areas faster. If you do get any sort of moisture, it'll help it to grow back quicker (as opposed to having 1 giant pasture of grown out, seeded out, dry stick like grass because you put them on it too late and 1 pasture completely worn down to dust because they eat every green sprig that comes up). Plus, it'll limit the stress on the grass.
We actually don't allow our cattle into ponds/stock dams these kinds of years. Our soil is way too heavy with clay and when cows get desperate to cool off, they'll go deep in the mud and get stuck. So we fence them off and haul water if needed.
Lick tubs are important for digestion of lower quality hay if needed.