Ranchers Send Cows To Slaughter As Drought Sears Pasture

[xchrom]

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-10/ranchers-send-cows-to-slaughter-as-u-s-drought-sears-pasture.html

The grass in Melvin Korte’s 280 acres of pasture in northern Missouri is dead, burnt away in the worst drought in the Corn Belt in more than a half-century. Now he’s doing all he can to keep his herd of 63 cattle alive.

He’s using up winter hay and buying feed at prices more than a third higher than three months ago. Later this year, he may bale the dead corn stalks from his neighbors’ fields for feed. “There’s not much nutrition in it,” the 65-year-old farmer says. “But it gets something in the animals’ stomachs.”

Feed-rationing may help Korte save two-thirds of his herd as he and other cattle farmers struggle to feed animals grazing on the brown and barren fields. Otherwise, “liquidation” is the alternative. Without the government-backed insurance available to corn and soybean farmers, cattle-producers may be suffering the most under the drought, responding to higher costs by sending cattle for slaughter early, with some eventually selling their herds entirely.

“You tough it out,” said Korte, whose farm near Curryville is about 70 miles northwest of St. Louis. “People will be deciding how much they need to sell based on whether it rains or not or if they can make it through the winter.”

[Berlum]

1. Doubleplusungood

[slackmaster]

5. It used to be a real pasture

Now it's just a Sears pasture.

[Berlum]

6. This was a parking lot

Now it's turned into an oasis.

[eShirl]

2. does this mean a temporary drop in prices is coming up?

followed by a longer period of high prices?

we have a new freezer with barely anything in it yet...

[Ilsa]

3. You got it.

I might buy one this weekend.

[TheCowsCameHome]

4. You think you've got worries?

Oy.