“They try to get to that little pool of water, ’cause that’s where they’re used to going, and the silt in the bottom of the tank, it’s just like it’s got no bottom to it,” said Cortese, a Texas Farm Bureau agent for 13 Central Texas counties and a Bell County commissioner. “You can walk in it even after it’s dried up and you’ll just about go down to your knees.”
These type of conditions, a result of low rainfall for more than a year, exemplify the dilemma facing Central Texas stockmen. Water is paramount to cattle ranching. According to Texas AgriLife, cattle drink between 7 and 18 gallons of water per day during summer.
The Texas Forest Service’s drought monitor reports Bell County is drying out at an alarming rate. On a severity scale with the lowest rating one, and 800 the highest, Bell rests in the 600 to 700 range and could go higher. South Bell County is in the worst shape.
Since cattle can get stuck in the muck at the bottom of these old watering holes, ranchers are moving herds. But putting more animals than normal on a singular pasture can cause overgrazing, a problem from which pastures can take years to recover.
Bell County agricultural extension agent Dirk Aaron said although Bell is only about 4 inches below its annual rainfall at this point, the ground is so dry it would take an extended period of rain, about 12 inches, to catch up. Meanwhile, those big cracks in black dirt start to look like a honeycomb.
“Bell County is unique from all this drought. We’re the driest county in Central Texas, from what I’ve heard,” Aaron said. “There is a large percentage of people that are liquidating their herd because to hang on to them is like buying your cattle back again."
When Bell and Milam county cattlemen cull their herds, they often sell their animals at the Milano Livestock Exchange. The Texas Department of Agriculture reports the number of cattle sold there this June and so far this July is up nearly 50 percent compared to the same period in 2008.
Milano co-owner Steven Lastovica said that in tough times like these he sees coming through the chutes at his auction barn more old cows that can’t pull their weight and more young ones coming in at an earlier age.
“We are in the middle of a tough time, no hay and running out of stock water, and it’s time for some decisions. You can’t just feed cattle all year-round and make it,” Lastovica said. “We need the grass.”
The good news, however, out-of-area buyers with better range conditions are steadily purchasing Bell and Milam cattle. This keeps prices up, Lastovica said. Prices are only down about 5 percent for this same period last year at Milano, the agriculture department reports.
During parched times like these, hay bales become a precious commodity. For the most part, supplies are dwindling, which means costs are rising, another problem for the cattlemen’s bottom line.
Bill Wilson grows and sells alfalfa and Coastal Bermuda hay at his farm near Little River-Academy. He said he could probably charge more for his round bales, which typically sell for about $60, but he won’t. If you take advantage of your customer one year, it may come back and bite you the next, he said.
“Say you jack up the price to $110 a bale, they’re going to be mad at you because they think you’re gouging,” Wilson said.
Back at the Bell County pasture where Cortese and his buddies lassoed the thirsty cow, the story has a happy ending. Traumatized from getting stuck and later pulled out, some cows don’t recover, no matter how careful a cowboy is.
“We got lucky,” Cortese said. “She jumped up five minutes after we got her out.”
fafflerbach@temple-telegram
