Great Ranchers Rise to The Occasion in a Drought
Drought.
I have lived long enough to remember the drought of the 1950s. I suffered along with everyone else in the 1996-2011 Texas droughts and learned some valuable lessons along the way. Raising cattle during those years sure separated the Hats from theRanchers.The Hat, I learned as a boy, has cattle, brags about their cattle and land, and brags about how much money they make. But when adversity strikes, they are all brag and no action. They have the western hat and the boots, but they lack experienceand knowledge.The people I admired during the droughts had prepared for droughts. They sized up things long before lack of water became a problem. They knew how to read nature and how to take advantage of all the resources on their land. Even if there was nothing on paper, they were planners. They knew how to ask the right questions from the experts; they knew what to keep and what to throw away.
There are a couple of sayings that sum up their knowledge. Peter Bacchus says, “If you would become a good farmer, study books and nature; if they differ, throw the books away.” An equally important saying is “For nature to be commanded, nature must be obeyed.” The best ranchers read nature like a book and obeyed nature like achild.What I learned from those scholars of the land, I carry with me today. First, the ranchers I admired always had a stockpile of reserve pastures that were only grazed once a year. In an emergency, they extended the grazing season. The area was never the best pastureland, but it didn’t have to be the worst pasture either. In the best years, if the rancher had 12 pastures, they only used six or eight of them for grazing. On the other pastures, they made and stored hay. In average years, at least two pastures were reserved forwinter or summer grazing.Second, in stressful times, the ranchers I admired became arborists. They would cut limbs from trees for the juicy leaves cattle loved. Seeing an approaching drought, the rancher would cut limbs from green hackberries and allow the cattle to feed from the leaves while still full of sugar. The Hat would wait until the leaves were brown to notice that there was less shade in the pasture. The rancher knew that cattle eat live oak leaves all year long and that live oaks hold their leaves longer in a drought. So s/he would feed live oak leaves closer to the end of the drought.
Third, the Hat and the rancher had different definitions of the word weed. Most ranchers called a weed anything in the pasture that was not grass.
By DAVID E. WILL
Good ranchers know that weeds are often nutritious herbs. Good ranchers appreciate “the weed” as a plant that contributes to improving the soil. To a good rancher, a real weed is a plant that cattle or wildlife will not eat. And if the population of those weeds is expanding, it is a signal that something is not right.
Far too many ranchers have been given poor information on how to control weeds. They often mow drought-stressed pastures so the fields look pretty. They use chemical herbicides and fertilizers whether there is a drought or not, killing valuable soil microbes. So, heading into a drought, a poorly informed rancher was always behind in healthy, water-holding pastures.
The way many ranchers get cattle to eat weeds in a drought is to have nothing but weeds left in the pasture. By that time, the starving cattle would eat the fallen dry leaves from the trees. Pastures were so bare that even the grass around the cattle muffins was grazed to the ground or had died. The only thing left were ant hills and trampled hay bales.
Great ranchers know how to get cattle to eat weeds, and more importantly, how to grow grass with fewer weeds. Great ranchers never use herbicides, and they limit chemical fertilizers. Their main focus is on how to grow grass using the natural actions of soil microbes. Those microbes prosper when they are fertilized by the north end of the south-bound animal, and when dung beetles provide the free labor to bury it. Great ranchers understood the importance of leaving tall grass in the pasture when cattle exit the field.
A great rancher knows weeds are an important part of any animal’s diet. Perhaps walking around in the pasture s/he sees that cattle often eat a bite or two of several different weeds. Book knowledge teaches that many common weeds found in pastures are higher in nutrients than the grass on which the cattle graze. A mixture of weeds and grass helps to keep an animal healthy in a drought.
Right now, much of Texas is in a severe drought. Far too many ranchers will sell livestock at a loss or feed expensive hay or supplements. And this drought is not nearly as bad as the droughtTurn toWill,