Take a seat with a Gillespie County rancher and one will find there are particular years that linger in the lore of local agriculture. And 2022 is shaping up to be one of those years.
Drought and the economy are combining to form a perfect storm scenario that is sinking some local livestock producers.
According to the National Weather Service, Fredericksburg is more than 12 inches below normal rainfall in 2022.
“Everybody is affected just a little bit different,” said Brad Roeder, who oversees Ag & Natural Resources at the Gillespie County AgriLife Extension office. “Some people have zero grass, others are getting to that point, and then others have grass to maybe get them into next spring.”
With the food supply wearing thin for cattle, sheep and goats, Roeder explained that most ranchers have three options. They can buy hay from nearby areas with more rain, bring hay in on semi-trucks, or haul their cattle to a different lease. But when drought becomes more widespread, even these options become difficult.
The final option for ranchers is to begin selling off the herd.
“As we get dry and as people start to cull their herds, it kind of floods the market and then the price goes down,” said Roeder.
“What a lot of producers do is wait until they’re out of grass, or almost out of grass, before they start making those cuts.”
Experienced and active livestock producers often try to stay ahead of the crash by accounting for drought conditions in their hay reserves and selling older cows to reduce cattle consumption, helping to stretch the food supply further before the situation becomes drastic.
“The cattle still have a fair price but with the number of cattle hitting the sale barns all around, they’re going down,” said Len Weinheimer, a Gillespie County cattle rancher who has worked livestock his entire life.
Sheep and goats are better equipped to withstand the drought due to diet and are also commonly shipped to more distant markets where their meat is more in demand. But even sheep and goat ranchers are feeling the burden of feed costs.
Hay and feed shortages
In addition to natural grasses drying up in drought, regional hay production also gets spread thin once ranchers begin buying hay reserves to keep herds healthy. But drought also affects hay production, and both fall and spring hay growth has taken a hit.
“People that normally grow hay haven’t produced hardly any hay at all,” said Weinheimer. “We are having to go outside of the county, mostly East Texas or further to get hay.”
Weinheimer has livestock in both Texas and New Mexico. For him, moving his herd to another location is not an option as New Mexico is also extremely dry.
Shipping hay from other areas has typically been an option when local hay production becomes strained. But many local ranchers are feeling the financial burden of high freight costs due to the rising cost of fuel.
This affects the grain industry as well, where freight expenses are also a struggle.
Clark Behrends, owner of Behrends Feed & Fertilizer, has seen price increases for all his products. His feed and grain supplies have been crucial to many local ranchers who are trying to provide good nutrition to their hungry herds.
“Our commodities are getting tougher and tougher to get,” said Behrends. “With fuel prices, trucking has been a big issue, trying to get ingredients in. And to top it all off, commodity prices are high.”
So far, Behrends has been able to keep most of his supply in stock despite increasing demands.
“Due to drought conditions, we’ve been very busy because the producers have to feed. Normally this time of year they do not,” Behrends said.
Weinheimer was able to minimize some of the financial hardship by staying ahead of the drought as best he could.
“I got some hay bought before the prices really went up,” Weinheimer said. “Now I’m having to pay freight on it to get it here but it’s still a whole lot cheaper than if I had waited.”
Like many career ranchers, Weinheimer is constantly having to evaluate conditions to find the best timing for purchasing hay and for selling off cows.
“I’ve been reducing some, but I’ve also been having to feed a lot more than I normally feed just to keep cattle in shape,” said Weinheimer.
Culling the herd
When grass, hay and grain are all difficult to supply, ranchers must sell livestock to stay afloat.
“The best thing is to be ahead of the curve. Selling those old cows early is not going to hurt you that bad,” Roeder said.
Making the decision on when to sell can be tricky business even for the experienced rancher, where the goal is to sell your livestock at a profit.
“If you can hold the cattle until it starts raining, they’re going to go up on price just because so many cattle have been sold off,” said Weinheimer. “But you don’t know where that point is, where they eat more than they’re worth.”
When the realization begins to sink in that rain may not be coming, a lot of livestock go up for sale in a short amount of time. That spike in supply causes the price per head to drop significantly. Then the ranchers, who typically struggle to keep their ranches profitable in the best of times, wind up selling their herd for very low prices.
Shaun and Wayne Geistweidt, owners of Gillespie Livestock Co. are at the front lines of the livestock market. They have been in business as a sale barn and livestock auction since 1950.
“It’s affected everybody greatly,” Shaun Geistweidt said. “If we don’t get any rain and they keep selling, then there’s not going to be a lot of stock left out there at all.”
Geistweidt recalls the drought of 2011 and the toll that it took on the cattle market.
“It’s similar to 2011 except for the numbers. The numbers aren’t quite what they used to be — we’re cut back about 30%,” said Geistweidt. “After 2011, nobody really restocked fully. So, we’re not seeing that great impact of cattle coming.”
The consequences of the 2011 drought are still being felt, and the same may be true after 2022.
Geistweidt has forged relationships across the nation through his lifetime in livestock sales. Those relationships have allowed him to help some of the ranchers get maximum prices for their product by shipping livestock to good buyers.
“We’re sending some cows out of here that are going up north to some green areas,” Geistweidt said.
A changing industry
The economic hit from low cattle prices, high hay prices, rising freight costs and drought conditions are likely to cause more livestock producers to reduce their herds or step out of the business.
And even with more cattle going to market, it is unlikely that meat prices will improve for consumers.
“There are so few meat packers that they control the price of meat,” Roeder said. “As much as we want to say with prices, if I sell my cattle for really cheap it ought to be cheaper at the grocery store, that’s kind of being very simplistic.”
Gillespie County is also experiencing changes in both the land and in land ownership.
“So much of our country has gone out of production,” Geistweidt said. “That’s affected numbers also, with a lot of wineries and stuff going up. It’s taken quite a bit out of production.”
Most current producers are the sons and daughters of once full-time ranchers who now work their herds as a hobby or as a part-time income.
Roeder also points out that livestock grazing is a significant form of fire prevention, and that the reduction of livestock may take a toll on fire conditions.
“The cattle and grazing really reduces our fire threat here in the county,” he said. “As more people go into wildlife exemption and don’t allow their neighbors to graze off that top forage every once in a while, our fire danger here in the county is going to get outrageous.”
Weinheimer recalls a time when yearly rainfall was better than current conditions.
“Since 1996, we’ve been pretty much in a drought,” said Weinheimer. “We have not had our normal rain patterns for 25 years.”
The one-two punch that many of Gillespie County’s ranchers are feeling is likely to cause long-term consequences for local agriculture. Rain would help. But even when rain increases, the damage will be done, and Gillespie County ranching may be dried up for many years to come.