Culling cattle

Managing your cattle during a drought includes culling decisions. Managing a livestock herd is challenging on its best days, but even more difficult during a drought. Beef cattle specialist Dave Loughman says producers need to make some hard choices about which cows need to be culled to help conserve the remaining forage. Speaker2: That's the priority long term. The adjustments made should ensure that the forage base does not damaged due to overgrazing, primarily. And so that's what we're trying to avoid, is damaging that natural resource that the foundation of the ranching enterprise. Speaker1: And make sure the cattle are well cared for during a drought. Speaker2: Taking good care of those animals and making sure that they're not compromised in terms of the body condition, which leads to, first of all, lower market value if you have to restock and sell some of those animals. But secondly, it also compromises their health status and certainly the health status of their new babies. Speaker1: Lowman says good record keeping will help producers make culling decisions on which cattle need to go. Speaker2: Especially if you're entering into a period of risk related to drought. To have a priority list, and hopefully the rancher has good enough records to sort of create that list of priorities. Which animals should go first in terms of what animals are still of good value? Speaker1: Culling decisions are important, but not easy.