01/25/07 Tough winter part one

Tough Winter We have been hearing and seeing a lot about the winter weather that has hit the Southwest and Southern plains states. I'm Jeff Keane; I'll be back right after this with some firsthand information. Here in the Pacific Northwest we have had a pretty wild winter with high winds, early cold snaps, and heavy snow, but nothing our livestock has not been able to handle. The reports out of the Southwest and Southern Plains states has been quite a bit worse. I talked with Barb Wilkinson with the Colorado Livestock Association based in Greeley. Barb says the situation northern Colorado is not quite as bad as in the southern part of the state where her family has a cow-calf operation. Livestock death losses are a major concern but losses in the northern feedlots have been fairly normal for winter storms. Talking with friends who know people in southern Colorado, I hear cattle losses in some places are way too large. The biggest concern for range cattle is getting feed to them. Southern Colorado will get snowstorms that normally melt away quickly, but Barb says there are about three snowstorms that have piled on one another and are not leaving. Some areas didn't put up much hay this summer since they had one of the best grass years for some time and normally winter the cattle on the range. But even foot tall grama grass is not available to livestock with snow depths of two feet up to five feet. Other areas of the Southwest didn't put up much hay because they went through a drought summer. Tomorrow I'll tell you some of the short and long term concerns cattlemen have coping with this stormy winter. I'm Jeff Keane.