From the Fields: Billie Roney, Tehama County rancher

By Billie Roney, Tehama County rancher

We’ve sent some of the cattle to the mountains, and we’re going to send the rest of them up next weekend. We’re keeping 100 baby pairs down here and feeding them because they’re too easy prey for the wolves. I don’t want to send those little guys up there to be eaten.

We have weaned calves younger and earlier than ever before to try to minimize the damage done by the wolves. The higher prices that we’re looking at this year have made that an OK choice. Before, it didn’t feel very smart because you’d keep them down here and you’d have to feed them because everything’s dried up now. Down here, we have to supplement their feed quite a bit. But the calves bring so much money that we’re not going backwards on them.

We had really good feed, but it dried up early—sooner than we thought. We had all that great moisture, but then the heat and the north winds came. The feed that’s out there now is very dry, so we’re supplementing. Hay prices have come down. Of course, our other costs have skyrocketed. We’re not using one allotment in the mountains of Lassen County because it was too far from our home headquarters to be able to watch over the cattle properly. 

We rebuilt the corrals so we could put the entire herd into those corrals at night to protect them from the wolves. It’s really hard on the cattle when you confine them in a small space like that. There’s no water going through there, and it gets real dusty because they kick everything up. Then you start having problems, especially your calves. If you have a lot of cattle in one space, you are not going to have any grass on the ground. We’ve also used fladry, and it’s really ineffective. I think the wolves are so smart no matter what you do. They figure it out after a while.