Ranchers tally impact on soggy herds - Cattle losses could top several hundred million dollars

Dinah Weil rode in on an airboat, desperate to see the red heads and humps of her Brahman cattle. Three days had passed since she had evacuated the flooded HK Cattle ranch and left 250 of the purebred bovines standing in ankle-deep water. Before Hurricane Harvey fully made its way into the area, Weil had loaded the youngest calves, their mothers and a bull into trucks and driven them to safety away from the 300-acre ranch, about 45 miles south of Houston. The others were stranded when rising floodwater became too deep for trucks to get through. HK Cattle, like a significant number of Texas' ranchers, was set to lose a significant amount of money if the herds drowned. State officials fear thousands of cattle may have died in the flooding or its aftermath. With more than 1.2 million head, the counties affected by Hurricane Harvey are home to one-in-four of all beef cows in Texas, the nation's largest producer. Officials are still tallying the damages, but one report stated that 250 cows were found in a pile after being washed down the Colorado River. Others found alive are often hungry, thirsty and worn out. "We're finding cattle in waist-deep water," said Sid Miller, Texas Agriculture commissioner. "But when we try to drive them to dry ground, many of them just collapse they're so exhausted." ...cattle raisers could be out hundreds of thousands of dollars if an entire herd were to drown. An average beef cow sold for $1,500 in May at the Oklahoma National Stockyards, branded as the world's largest stocker and feeder cattle market. The Livestock Indemnity Program with the U.S. Department of Agriculture could provide some aid to ranchers, but Miller said it likely won't be enough. "It's a pittance," he said. "We'll have to appeal to Congress to put some more money in that fund, I'm sure." After Hurricane Ike in 2008, economists at Texas A&M estimated more than $430 million in direct agricultural losses. Of that, cattle losses totaled $13.3 million and damages to fences, hay and the like were $23.3 million. Harvey could be more costly because it affected a larger area, said David Anderson, an A&M professor and agriculture economist...more