The new year should offer cattle ranchers a chance to begin to recover from 1996's triple whammy of low market prices, high feed costs and a drought that devastated as much as 90 percent of range land in some areas.
Even so, it will be an uphill battle for at least two years to rebuild herds that were reduced by 30 percent to 40 percent and return to profitability, industry experts say.
Prospects are looking better for a more normal rain pattern for 1997, said Tom Dever, hydrometeorological technician with the National Weather Service in Corpus Christi. Total rainfall measured in 1996 at Corpus Christi International Airport was 18.63 inches, 11.5 inches shy of the 50-year average of 30.13 inches.
Given rain, some pastures will recover on their own, but ranchers may have to reseed some pastures and face a tremendous amount of brush work and weeding, said John Ford, agricultural extension agent for Kleberg and Kenedy counties.
Part of the ranchers' problem, low market prices, was not limited to the Coastal Bend, or even to Texas, Ford said. Nationwide and globally the market generally fluctuates over a period of years. "If we look at the cattle market cycle, we're still on the downside of the curve but expect improvement in the next two years," he said.
As for feed, grain prices are back to about what they have averaged for the past six years, said Larry Falconer, economist for the Texas Agricultural Extension Service in Corpus Christi. "The Midwest grew a pretty good crop of corn and grains, and winter wheat is off to a good start."
In 1996, with nearly bare pastures, high grain prices and a nationwide hay shortage, ranchers had little choice but to turn to alternative feed, including prickly pear cactus, sorghum stubble and cottonseed. They turned cattle out into hay fields that did not produce enough hay to bale but had more forage than bare pastures. And they reduced herd sizes by unloading stock in a depressed market already glutted with beef.
"Some of us are fortunate to both farm and raise cattle," said Stanley Woelfel, a lifelong rancher in Kleberg County. "We baled a lot of our own grain sorghum stubble."
Even with supplemental feed, Woelfel said, he sold about 10 percent of his breeding herd, kept some cattle in the area and moved the youngest and strongest brood cows, about 20 percent of his herd, north to better pastures in East Texas. "We'll bring them back when conditions permit," he said.
"Typically if you're low on forage you can sell cows and reduce feed costs," said Eric Bluntzer, a fifth-generation rancher in western Nueces County. Last year (cattle) prices were so low if we took them to the sales ring we were faced with giving them away. If we kept them we were faced with the high price of feed.
"Normally we sell off a calf crop and keep a few heifers. Most calves that would go to market at 6 months and 450 pounds went to the sale barn early, weighing 350 pounds," Bluntzer said. He estimates that he also sold about 35 percent of his production herd in 1996.
"Cows that three or four years ago would have brought $400 to $600 were going for $200 last summer," said Charlie Kocurek, who runs a farm and ranch operation in Nueces and Jim Wells counties with his father, Joe Kocurek, and brothers Tom and Rick.
"When you're getting $200 or less for a good mother cow, it doesn't take them long at $65 a bale to eat that much in hay, Kocurek said. He said he lost about 60 percent of his pasture to drought. His farm operation provided hay, grain stubble and cottonseed as supplemental feed, but he still was forced to reduce his herd.
"We sold anything that wasn't nursing a calf or pregnant. Conception rates that normally are 85 to 90 percent dropped to around 78 to 90 percent. A lot of good cows went straight to the packer because there was nowhere else for them to go," Kocurek said. He estimates his family sold from 75 to 100 cows.
The 18-county area held an estimated 747,000 head of beef cows at the first of last year, said Falconer. From information received from banks, sales barns and ranchers, Falconer estimates that ranchers, on the average, reduced their herds by 30 percent, or a combined total of about 224,000 cattle in 1996.
Factoring out the effects of a weak market and high feed costs, Falconer estimates that the drought alone has cost area ranchers $108 million and will have a further economic impact of about $257 million on the area as a whole.
Even with improved conditions, it will take ranchers some time to recoup their losses, Kocurek said. Reduced herds will result in a smaller calf crop this spring. It will take several months for those calves to grow to market size. He estimates it will take the new crop nearly three years to grow, be bred and produce additional cattle to sell or add to his herd.
Bluntzer said optimism, patience, determination and diversification will pull them through. "My wife and I make our entire living off agriculture," he said. "We're hoping next year to see at least a 5- to 10-cent increase in market prices of cattle. If 1997 isn't better, we hope to hold ground where we're at. We have other ag-related sideline ventures going to keep us in the cow business. We're trying to preserve it and pass it on."