4000+ head of cattle need help

rider · #1 07/06/12, 11:51 PM

Due to the Ash Creek Fire in Powder River County Montana 4000+head of cattle no longer have pasture to graze. The are in dire need of hay. this fire burned 250,000 acres or 360 square miles> If you or anyone you know can donate or sell hay or donate money towards purchase of hay please contact our local vet Randy Ward at Powder River Vet Clinic 1-406-436-2563. This fire recieved little to no national attention abecause it didnt affect lots of people like the fires in Colorado but you can see pictures on the Billings Gazette website Ash creek gallery Thanks so much for anything you can do for these cattle Linda Kreiner

SFM in KY · #2 07/07/12, 06:56 AM

I also read in another article this morning that so far they believed as many as 1000 head had been killed by the fire. There was a quote by one rancher that they had been going out and shooting the ones they found that had been badly burned but were still alive.

So many of these people have lost everything ... and unlike many of the homeowners in CO they are not covered by insurance.

bajiay · #3 07/07/12, 07:06 AM

How sad. I hadn't heard of that one either.

opportunity · #4 07/08/12, 08:46 AM

The problem is also compounded by the very poor yields on the hay crops in the region. My husbands family only got 26 bails off a field they have averegaged 200 a year off of in the past. They also can't even cut some of the fields as there is nothing there. They have their animals in a corral and are feeding last years hay as the grass never came up in most of the pastures it's just dirt.
We have been looking into what we can do if our pasture here burns as it's so dry even the old people in town haven't seen it like this

Molly Mckee · #5 07/08/12, 09:39 AM

We have reasonably priced hay in E. WA, but the trucking will probably make it expensive.
Baling is just starting here now, it's been so cold and wet this spring we are about a month behind. A lot of of the hay is contracted but there is plenty that isn't. It's great quality alfalfa, just starting to bloom.

noeskimo · #6 07/08/12, 06:14 PM

Sounds like here in West Texas, last year. I will hold the powder River area up in prayer. We are still in drought, but not enough to burn now.

Cheribelle · #7 07/09/12, 11:44 PM

My friend was up that way, no idea about the fires until they got there. What a sad tale he had to tell. I had to really search to find any news, but I got his first hand reports and they were BAD. Yep, whole herds had to be shot because they were too badly burned to save. Udders burned off cows, feet burned off calves. Made me sick. And NO news coverage to speak of, it didn't affect any celebrities, I guess

rider · #8 07/10/12, 01:31 PM

As far as the news media is concerned no one lives here and really there are very few people but you would think something on this scale would deserve a little coverage even our "local" news didnt have much to say about it until people started complaining about lack of coverage. We were up to the burn a few days ago and there are signs of life in the burn area we saw deer and squirrels. the bears are comming into peoples yards looking for food, not sure where the elk went havent heard of them being seen and cows are still being found dead and alive , the local bee guys had to move their bee hives from the bottom lands to other places for feed for the bees it just affects everything and everybody and will be along time before that forest land is whole again. I just hope no one else in the nation has to deal with a fire this large in land mass.

grandma12703 · #9 07/10/12, 02:18 PM

It's a really bad deal. Usually there is ample hay here in Missouri ready to go but this year with our drought people are scrambling as it doesn't look promising for anyone here either. Sure wish we could help.

InvalidID · #10 07/10/12, 02:22 PM

So this is bad for the price of beef? I'm figuring there will be a lot of cattle on the market at rock bottom prices in the next few weeks is all.

hintonlady · #11 07/10/12, 03:07 PM

The national herd size has been sharply decreasing in the last couple years. The ongoing drought conditions have forced cattle sell offs that as of last year were including increasing numbers of heiffers usually reserved for replacement cows. The decrease is increased exponentially when the breeding stock numbers dip, it takes that much longer to multiply back to what our country is used to having.

Basically, there is a wide scale dispersal of market animals as well as seedstock. The lower seedstock rate is a bigger long term concern.

Meat may be cheap in the near future but if it goes too low you can rest assured the flip side will be ugly. Recovery could take a decade or better. (especially if the droughts continue)

3 large cattle auctions in my area have been closed for a month due to heat. Reason cited is that the stock cannot be kept cool enough in the pens to make a sale safe. Lots of fat cattle waiting around for slaughter on burnt grass will not help either. No way to feed and no way to sell...

MO_cows · #12 07/10/12, 04:48 PM

4,000 head of cattle isn't enough to have a national impact in and of itself. It is just another straw on the camel's back.

Hopefully with some publicity, they can get some feed to those surviving cattle from not too far away. That general area, right up on into Canada, had a super growing season last year and should have made a lot of extra hay. Surely not all of it was trucked to Texas??

It is maddening how the media ignores a story like this one, but always lets us know what Lindsey Lohan has been up to. Grrrrrr

andabigmac · #13 07/10/12, 05:37 PM

I live near the Seeley fire here in Utah. Its burning the mountains where thousands of beef and sheep graze. The farmers are taking out USDA grants to get money to buy hay. They're buying hay that people would use to feed their stock this winter. When winter hits there's not going to be hay for sale. Here's the part that chaps my bum. Utah is a major producer of alfalfa hay. 80-90% of the hay is sold over seas in cube form to zoos, the middle east, etc. The farmers can make more selling to the cube producers than private sales. The cube producers make more money selling overseas. You would think that someone would step in and try to keep some of that hay in the states where it's needed. Can you imagine how much good some of that hay would do in Montana? Or here for that matter? I'm culling a lot of my animals this fall because I don't know if the hay will be there. I was hayjacked this winter and ended up feeding cubes for 3 months. I spent over $2400 in 3 months. I can't do that again this winter.

I'm done ranting for the moment. Maybe.

sidepasser · #14 07/10/12, 07:23 PM

I posted on my Facebook page but don't know how much good that will do since we are in a drought ourselves.

haypoint · #15 07/10/12, 08:28 PM

I know Montana is a big state. Is the drought/fire near Montana's Big Blackfoot River skirts the southern edge of the Bob Marshall Wilderness, just west of the Continental Divide? The small town of Helmville in Powell County. This is where a well funded Red Angus Ranch is, Myers. They market humanely raised beef.

rider · #16 07/10/12, 09:47 PM

The Ash Creek fire is in Powder River County, the southeastern corner of the state and yes we had awsome moisture years the last 2 years and people put up alot of hay they also in turn trucked alot of hay out of this country to texas to help those people last year truckers were comming threw here buying hay and loading it to take to Texas some even loaded it into reffer trailers just to get feed to texas. the excess o old grass from the last 2 "good " years also made for extra fuel for the fire to burn. last winter we had a total of 12 inches of snow and a very warm winter on top of no moisture. things are bad all over the country with weather. One rancher on the news tongiht figures he lost half of his 800 head to the fire if not killed outright they had to be killed. And for those of you wondering it is figured here to feed 1 cow you need 20 acres, so that helps explain why there werent more cows imvolved in 250,00 acres of fire most of the fire was on forest and the grazing permits wont be given out for 2 years now as i understand so the land can repair itself. There was a lot of private land burned also and most of that was bottom land along the edge of the forest where lots of hay is raised or was r aised

nobrabbit · #17 07/11/12, 02:46 PM

Here's a link to the Hay Internet Exchange, hope it will help.
Internet Hay Exchange - Hay For Sale

texican · #18 07/12/12, 10:11 PM

As of last week, my ranching relatives told me cattle are still bringing record prices.

I'd sell the entire herd, while it's alive. It'd take thousands of rolls of hay to keep these cattle alive thru next year... sell em, hope prices stay close to the same, and buy new ones next spring.

You're not raising cattle... you're raising grass... no grass/no cows. NO one can buy enough grass (hay) to feed their cattle throughout the year, without going broke.