Brad Fowler Nevada County rancher
Pasture condi- tions are exceed- ingly dry. All of our annual grass- lands are just about done right now, and with no rain in the forecast, we’re
THE NEXT DROUGHT IS COMING, PROTECT YOUR WATER SUPPLY…
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seriously looking at destocking cows, so we’re going to wean early and sell early on the cattle enterprise. We’re currently halfway through calv- ing season with our cows. Cows are mov- ing out to summer pastures. Our irrigation water looks to be good this year. We’re expecting 100% delivery in our district. The water turned on ear- lier. We’re grateful for that. Our irrigated pastures are needing the water. The con- ditions are more similar to June 1 than April 15. We’re just playing catch-up to get water across the fields before we put cows onto them. We might wean our lambs early this year and sell some of them, just because the spring feed is almost done. We like to take them off the mothers before the grass turns. We’ll wean them early, but we’ll continue to run them until the feed runs out, and then we’ll sell our lambs, probably in the fall. All our sheep, goats and lambs are for contract grazing, and they are mostly out working right now on contract grazing projects. We had a very good lambing and kidding season, and we’re wrapped up with that. We expect that with the wildfires, this is going to be a very busy season for contract grazing. We’re having more de- mand for contract grazing than we ever have before, especially when Cal Fire is predicting a super horrific fire season. Drought years are actually pretty good for us because we get paid by the acre, not by the head per day. In drought years, we actually make more money in contract grazing because we’re able to cover the ground faster than we would in a really good feed year. The cows do poorly in a bad feed year, but the sheep and goats are actually more profitable, so it balances out pretty well. That’s where having the dual enterprise has actually really worked out well for us. Now is a miserable time to sell cows, because the market has tanked. Everybody else is doing the same thing. We did apply for the Livestock Forage Program through the (Farm Service Agency) for drought re- lief, and that will help. Despite the lack of moisture, we’re an- ticipating it’s still going to be a good year, especially on the contract grazing side, so we’re optimistic about that.
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4 Ag Alert April 21, 2021
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