Jan. 26, 2012 - There's not as many cows in Texas as there used to be, and the ones that have been removed won't be coming back any time soon. That's the view of livestock specialist Jason Cleere with Texas AgriLife Extension Service. "Will they come back this year?" he asked at a recent livestock clinic in Milam County. "Probably not."
According to Extension statistics, Texas has 600,000 fewer cows now than on Jan. 1 of last year, a decline of about 12 percent. During that time, the state has received less than half -- 46 percent -- of the rain it normally receives. As a result, farmers and ranchers have had to sell off cows as pastures withered and died and the cost of hay skyrocketed.
Cleere doesn't necessarily believe that cow numbers in Texas should bounce back right away, at least not until pastures are in better shape and the cows can spend more time grazing and less time feeding. One way to help that happen, he said, is to maintain a conservative stocking rate, or the number of animals that graze on a given amount of land. That has to be balanced with the carrying capacity of that same land, or the number of grazing animals the land can sustain.
"It's a balancing act to combine those, but you're going to feed more if the stocking rate exceeds the carrying capacity," Cleere said.
The cost of feed, whether its hay, corn, or supplements, has gone up along with demand, and demand is very high. Ten years ago 20 percent range cubes sold for $200-$220, Cleere noted. Today the cost is between $360 and $400. Equipment and fertilizer costs are up, too.
To put it in perspective Cleere quoted agriculture economist Stan Bevers in Vernon: "Economics trumps tradition." To Cleere, that means optimizing or maximizing the bottom line, which is how much money is left over at the end of the day. What might have made sense in a different economy doesn't necessarily make sense, now, he said.
"Everything about this past year has been different," he said. "Rainfall has been erratic the last 10 or 15 years. Historically, it rains in the spring, cuts off in the summer and goes back up in the fall. That wasn't the case this year. Most places got between 25 and 40 percent of their normal rainfall. If we had stocked at 75 percent of capacity, we would have been overstocked. A cow to 30 acres probably would have been too much. It was catastrophic."
Cleere said that a common mistake is using a stocking rate based on rates used many years ago, when cattle averaged about 900 pounds instead of the 1,400 they average today. He said it takes about seven pounds of quality forage every day, or about two round bales per cow. A lower stocking rate allows the cows to spend more time grazing and less time eating expensive hay or other feeds.
"With a lower stocking rate, you have more of a buffer during a drought," he said. "In the cow business, if you're in a drought situation everybody around you is in a drought situation, too.
"If you keep a reasonable stocking rate, you won't have to buy back cows at high prices when the rain returns. It's going to take time for pastures to recover from everything they've been through: high temperatures, overgrazing, no moisture.
"It may be time to think of your operation in terms of profit per acre. That means that fewer cows may be more profitable over the long run. You'll lower your fertilizer costs and buy less hay and lower the land cost per cow."
