TexasCHLforum.com

Watching your trees die is painful - you can't just sell them off and buy new ones when times are better like livestock. We have a bunch of old live oaks and they are dropping their leaves - I'm praying they are simply going dormant. We received 0.23" of rain Thursday which was a wonderful and unexpected blessing although you can't tell any difference now - we're still brown and dusty.

Our well only produces 2-3 gpm in the best of times, so there is no way we can water anything but ourselves. Our neighbor's well is slowing down and I think ours is also.

I just picked up 10 square bales of alfalfa for the blackbuck last week and the going price is now over $13 a bale. I paid $9 in May. Coastal hay is $10 a bale - used to be $7-8 a bale. It doesn't sound like a lot of money, but it really adds up over time. Thank goodness I don't have cattle - they eat probably ten or twenty times what my blackbuck eat.

Thanks again guys!

I recently washed the truck and our little ranch truckette (a Japanese mini-truck) and no joy so far. Guess I should do the tractor next.

Looks like tomorrow I need to make a run to the feed store and buy more alfalfa

Thanks guys

We have a small ranch between Fredericksburg and Junction in the hill country and we have only had about 4.5" of rain all year. We raise blackbuck antelope to sell to other ranches and there is zero grass for the critters to eat - we are going through 1500 pounds of feed per month. Hay is getting harder to find and the price keeps going up. Some of our rancher friends are selling their animals since it is too expensive to feed them.

We had dreams of making a little money on our herd but that won't happen for a long time. The hole keeps getting dug a little deeper each day we have no rain. Please dear Lord send us abundant rain.