By Matt Poore
As our drought continues, so do worries about where the feed will come from to get cows through to better times. The drought of 2026 started in the fall of 2025, and there has been very little rain since that time. Many areas are 15 to 20 inches behind on rain for the year! The development of this situation took some by surprise as in winter it only takes a little bit of moisture to give you mud. Also, rainfall is more effective in cooler weather, so timely rains in March pushed out growth of pastures and made things seem better than they were. If you keep track of your rainfall, you could see this coming for a long time.
Unfortunately, periods of warm weather pushed out early pasture growth that was subsequently damaged by late freezes. As a result, pastures and hayfields showed delayed growth, which was then challenged by very high temperatures. That green up and freeze off cycle happened two or three times for many of us, so that by the time things really should have started to grow strong in April and May, the lack of moisture became an obvious reality.
At this point, much of the pastureland in the region has been closely grazed and many cows are being fed hay. The very short first cutting hay crop (25 to 50% of our normal expectation) makes this situation even more dire. Some farmers have also kept more cows than usual due to the high prices they expect for calves, and now that feed is short this may not have been a good plan. Recent rains, especially in the mountains, have relieved some minds, but even if things are green where you are it will take a lot of continued rain to get us out of the drought, and we will not recover that lost spring hay production no matter what.
I have received many calls and emails in the last week asking about various alternative feeding strategies. Even if we receive a lot of rain by the time this article is published, we will be in a hay shortage until at least next spring, so every producer needs to take stock of their situation and make sure they have a feed plan for the number of cattle they intend on keeping.
Fortunately, cattle prices are high, so we need to take advantage and market cattle that are ready for sale. In an earlier cattle connection article, we discussed culling in the face of drought, so keep in mind that is the first step in your plan; reduce the total amount of feed that will be needed. Selling in an orderly fashion will help you keep the very best cows and replacement heifers so you can build back after the drought runs its course. If you still have cows that have significant defects they should be sold now. Later, if things continue to worsen you can start selling the good cows that don’t need to go to slaughter.
Source : ncsu.edu