Drought pressures producers to sell yearlings sooner than normal

By Jennifer Carrico

Sending yearlings to the feedlot sooner than normal is what many stocker cattle producers are doing this year because of drought conditions.

Bassett, Neb., cattleman Homer Buell said raising cattle in the Sandhills of Nebraska always means dry weather, but this year is way more extreme than normal.

Homer and his son, Chad, run 750 commercial cow-calf pairs along with about 1,000 stocker cattle on their Shovel Dot Ranch in north central Nebraska. The drought of 2012 has pushed them to make decisions before they would like.

"We will be weaning everything in early September, which is about a month earlier than normal," he said. "We plan to keep all the calves and background them here and we may purchase some more to run as well. It all depends on the grass situation."

The decision to wean early is one that Buell hopes will benefit both the cows and calves since they are short on grass and hay. As for the yearlings, he's selling them a bit early this year too.

This year the yearlings were fed a wet distillers cake at a low level to help keep gains at a more normal amount since they were short on grass.

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