This long, hot summer has become a long, hot crisis for livestock in Central Virginia and the neighboring Shenandoah Valley.
That entire region is now in a drought, varying from moderate conditions in the east closer to Richmond to extreme conditions in the mountains in the northern triangle tip of the state.
And while a drought may immediately conjure images of wilting stalks and withering leaves, field crops make up a minority of Virginia’s agricultural production. In fact, livestock accounts for roughly 63% of farm cash receipts, with poultry, beef and dairy constituting the largest products. And it is livestock that is most at risk during a drought, especially sheep and cattle.
Rainfall over the past two weeks has helped some, but not enough. Pastures are running out of grass for grazing, and livestock weights are diminishing. Breeding is more difficult if not impossible in the heat, and some ranchers are now selling off livestock to stay solvent.
At Ridgeview Acres in Augusta County near New Hope, David Shiflett said he couldn’t remember a hotter or drier July in his lifetime. Shiflett raises sheep and cattle, and he also raises chickens as a contract farmer for George’s, a major poultry producer in Harrisonburg. He has 300 ewes and 60 heads of cattle on his farm.
“I’ve been farming all my life,’’ Shiflett, who is also chairman of the Augusta County School Board, told the News Virginian. “This is the worst summer I can remember. I can remember dry years in the ‘60s and in the ‘80s. This one started early, much earlier than normal.’’
He said there is no pasture for his livestock, and the clay soil on his farm is hardened after weeks on end of dry, hot conditions.
Shiflett said his ewes feel the heat worse than any other livestock.
“It [the heat] is hard on all livestock, but sheep in particular, because of the wool and they are closer to the ground,’’ he said.
Sheep must be sheared in the extreme heat, but there is no gain in that, Shiflett said.
“The wool is worthless, about 10 cents a pound. But if you don’t shear, the body heat keeps them from reproducing,’’ he said.
Because pastures are drying up, cattle are now fed in the barns.
Jeff Slaven, the chairman of the Augusta County Board of Supervisors who raises cattle at Maple Springs Farm near Weyers Cave, said the drought has made him wean his calves from their mothers several weeks ago, a month earlier than he normally would have.
“That [weaning] takes the pressure off the cows,’’ said Slaven. By feeding the calves in the barn, he still hopes to add about 300 pounds to each by October.
While Slaven has little hope for his corn crop, he thinks the recent rain offers optimism for his pasture.
“If we can get some late summer and early fall moisture, we still have time for hay and the pastures,’’ Slaven said. He also anticipates some cooler nights during August.
While the recent rainfall has helped, the Shenandoah Valley between Augusta County and Winchester is as hard hit by the drought as any place in Virginia, said John Benner, animal science extension agent for the Augusta County office of the Virginia Cooperative Extension.
“It [the rainfall] would have helped in June,’’ he told the News Virginian. “But we are so far behind in pasture and hay production.”
Augusta County, Virginia’s second-most productive agricultural county, passed an emergency drought resolution on July 24, allowing farmers to obtain financial relief through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Livestock Forage Disaster Program. Farmers with sheep could receive nearly $12 per sheep and $50 per cow to purchase feed, Benner said.
But some are already starting to run out of hope.
“I don’t know how people will make it through the winter,” said Shiflett. “I’m already feeding our winter hay. I’ve been feeding for six weeks. We won’t have silage to feed this winter.”
The Tueting family of Sweet Seasons Farm near Batesville in Albemarle County have already started to sell off some of their cattle.
Ever since the Tuetings moved to the area in 2002, they have been able to maintain their livestock on an abundant, cheap source of sustenance surrounding their family-run farm: grass.
The two goats, two donkeys, 18 cows and over 100 Katahdin sheep at Sweet Seasons Farm have stayed well-fed grazing different areas of the 9-acre property as well as neighboring pastures. The Tuetings rotate where the animals graze monthly, allowing the grass time to replenish before it, once again, gets mowed down by livestock.
However, after months without steady rain, the hillsides of Sweet Seasons Farm bear little resemblance to their typical verdant state. The little patches of grass that manage to sprout from the larger stretches of red clay only reach 2 inches high, instead of the preferred 8 to 10 inches.
“We’re basically out of grass here right now,” Jack Tueting told The Daily Progress. “We have three [pastures] that don’t have grass right now.”
A freshman at Harvard University who was born and raised on the farm, Tueting only recalled one rainstorm during the entire month of June, which makes it the fourth-driest June in Albemarle County on record and the driest June for all of Virginia, according to the National Integrated Drought Information System.
Last year’s drought was bad, Tueting said, “but it was better than this.” In 2023, both June and July saw little rain, but as August rolled around, so did the rain clouds. This year, however, the drought began earlier and looks as though it could stay later. Over the past two months, Central Virginia has only received 25% to 50% of its average precipitation, which usually ranges from 4 to 5 inches over the months of June and July.
“This year, it was more front-loaded, which is worse, because normally the grass will get a really good start and then, because of the heat, it’ll stop growing as fast in late June, July,” said Tueting, who noted that some of the younger lambs at Sweet Seasons have stunted in development without enough to feed them. “But because the drop started earlier in June for us, the grass had less mass before it kind of stopped growing.”
The Tuetings have been forced to move most of their cattle down the road to graze on a neighbor’s land. Most, but not all: A couple of weeks ago, Mark Tueting, Jack’s father, took three cows to a cattle auction in Harrisonburg, hoping to decrease the number of mouths to feed and increase his earnings. Upon arrival, he discovered he wasn’t the only man with that idea.
“Everyone was dumping their cows. It took me three hours just to get through the line to unload,” Mark Tueting told The Daily Progress. “There are just so many farmers who are out of grass, they were dumping all at the same time.”
Previously, cows went for roughly $220 per 100 pounds. However, given the influx of supply, prices have taken a hit and have dropped to $130 per 100 pounds.
“A week or two weeks earlier would have gotten a full dollar-pound more, so I mean, we lost $1,800,” said Mark Tueting, who also observed several thin cows in the lineup. “People obviously had been holding them for a while. I think people were waiting to see if rain would come, and it didn’t. They were really holding in.”
Like Shiflett on the other side of Afton Mountain, the Tuetings have been weighing whether they begin to dip into their winter hay reserves now or try to wait it out.
Breaking out the hay this early already throws off the Tuetings’ yearly routine and budget, but it becomes even more costly in a drought year. At this point in the summer, farmers should be well into their third cutting of hay. But, because the fields aren’t regrowing at the normal rate, Sara Tueting, Mark’s wife, said only a few have managed to get a second cutting. Others may have already begun doling out their first cutting just to keep their animals fed.
“The price of hay is going to be quite high, it’ll be hard to come by,” she said. “Which means that hay prices, instead of being like 30 or so dollars a bale are $36 a bale, so that’s a jump that’s definitely significant if the sheep and cows eat maybe 100 bales a year over the winter.”
Livestock owners across Central Virginia have been keeping a cautious eye on the hay supply. They know all too well that the effects of a summer drought can ripple into the cold winter months. That is why Ali King has already begun to purchase hay to stockpile before prices soar and supply plunges so she can feed the 60 horses she looks after at King Family Vineyards in Crozet.
Grapevines are more tolerant of hot, dry conditions, but the King family is known for more than just their wines. The summer polo season is a major attraction at the family estate Roseland. As manager of the Roseland Polo Club, Ali King is charged with looking after professional polo ponies as well as clients’ horses that call the vineyard’s 100 acres of pasture home.
“It’s really difficult to manage the pastures,” King told The Daily Progress. “As we start to lose grass, it means that you start throwing hay, and obviously, that’s a cost that you can’t necessarily count on at the beginning of the year as you’re budgeting. Certainly, grain and feed costs start to go up as there’s less available grass in the pastures for the horses.”
King has also stayed hypervigilant of the ground conditions and the 300-by-160-yard polo pitch. On the dry, compact dirt, the risk for injury increases for both horse and rider.
“The polo fields, or the footing, is really important for polo ponies and for polo players, you don’t want it too dry or hard for risk of injury and slipping on the really hard grass,” she said. “Similarly, if there’s too much water, it causes a tremendous amount of field damage that can sometimes be very difficult to repair and it becomes obviously slick, so there’s a fine line that we walk. We really need the field conditions to be perfect all the time for the safety of the animals and the players.”
To maintain this balance, Roseland Polo Club staff spend two days before matches watering the field, slowly moving from one of the 10 irrigation risers until a quarter of an inch of water has seeped onto the pitch.
King has also instructed trainers to take horses out earlier in the morning for their daily practice to keep them from spending too much time under the blazing sun. The summer’s extreme heat is also why King Family Vineyards decided to push back the start time of polo matches until later in the evening.
“Shifting our regular Sunday matches this year into a 6:30 p.m. time frame, the players and the animals and the customers have really liked it and appreciated it,” said King. “So that’s definitely something we’re considering doing on a scheduled basis moving forward into next year.”
Delayed polo matches are not the only indicator that times might be changing for Virginia farmers due to the rising frequency of droughts. Jack Tueting pointed out that livestock owners across the country will likely have to lower the amount of pasture space and factor in longer resting periods for the grass to regrow.
“It’s also obviously not good for farmers’ bottom line,” he said, adding that his family is fortunate enough to not rely on Sweet Seasons as their only source of income. “But there’s lots of farmers who do, and that’s going to be a lot more difficult for them to live off that.”
Source: www.dailyprogress.com
Be First to Comment