South Dakota Blizzard

[Dalmatian90]

Nice article:
http://dawnwink.wordpress.com/2013/...was-and-its-aftermath-on-cattle-and-ranchers/

 

[lfnh]

Thanks for the link.
Not much at all has been reported nationally. Nothing on the scale of cattle loss reporting from Texas/Oklahoma drought a couple of years back. Yet, on a regional scale those SD losses are huge, some are saying as high as 1.5 million. Even with stop loss coverage, money can't make whole a herd cut down like that. Pneumonia can run like wildfire right thru healthy herds hammered by cold rain, gale winds and then heavy snow. Any herd loss more than a small % is scary place to be. With these SD losses, Fall gather sales to pay bills and buy next years fuel and supplies just compound the problem. 3-4 years from calf to cow to calf + years to beefs sale = herd replacement (and there is no income in this time);
Kinda rough figured 15++% of herd extra margain in cow/calf for emergency loss replacement or quick sale to cover something broke down. Never had to deal with anything like this stuff in SD. Some of these guys losses are to high. Too mush expense too much time to recover. Spendy transport, high market for buying replacements and feed costs going into winter, just killer risks. Lot of regional busineess are goin to feel it from the herd losses. So is the consumer.

But nobody to the level of the rancher.
Was always asking "what was I thinking"
Cattle Timber Crop



















oh, and not to forget the sheeps :msp_wink:

 

[Marco]

All the economist and people in the know said sell your old cows last year and keep the heifers, so a heifer that may have had some growing herself to do yet mothered a calf last summer and came into fall a little skinny.

 

[farmer steve]

All the economist and people in the know said sell your old cows last year and keep the heifers,

yeah but they don't have cow s#!$ on their boots.them older cows can make good mammas.

 

[lfnh]

Heifers bred too young can run dry. Some can't defend their calf, or know to.
Usedto take couple of summers to learn grazing ground for new heifers.
Young heifer with new calf and pouched out again is just cat food. and that's an unsubsidized x3 loss, x 4 years or 12 cow years. write that check. don't remember ever getting a check for rained on falfa or grass or burned over blm/fs permit.