10
Hi-Line
December 2013
FARM & RANCH
www.havredailynews.com
Paying it forward: Final total of loss in monetary value will be hundreds of millions ■ Continued from page A1
The Ty that binds
Home-grown northcentral Montana effort
Through Burcham and Brown’s effort in
FARM & RANCH
December 2013
www.havredailynews.com
Why the helping hand was needed Whether newly starting out or established, virtually no rancher has insurance that will replace lost cattle, said Silvia Christen, executive director of the South Dakota Stockgrowers Association. It’s cost prohibitive. Generally, the insurance producers have is similar to liability insurance for a vehicle insuring against damage the cattle might do, but not against damage done to them, she added. And unlike farmers, who have been assisted for many years now by government subsidies to help with securing food production from volatile markets, ranchers have gone their own way in securing against market risks, she said. That's the way, as a whole, they want it, she added. The down side of this independence is when something like this happens, she said. But ranchers are known for lending each other a helping hand. The donations are especially important to younger ranchers who don't have a backup and have had to extend themselves financially to make a go of the business, she said.
Lost cattle, both dead and alive, are still being found scattered across the region, he said, including one small group that managed to survive as it drifted with the storm across 31 miles. With calves selling for $800 to $1,000 and replacement heifers and breeding stock selling for $1,800 to $2,500, Linger said, the cattle losses alone easily range into the hundreds of millions of dollars. Add to this the costs to repair damaged property, especially fences, and loss of future income, and the monetary loss is catastrophic an a level that cannot be calculated. Linger knew he had to do something.
What Ty Linger ended up doing was not gathering breeding stock donations in Miles City, but rather coordinating efforts between the donors and the recipients in South Dakota. He forged a partnership with the nonprofit organization North Central Resource Conservation and Development Association Inc. of South Dakota, so that all donations of cattle and money would be tax deductible, arranged pickup and delivery details and helped create the anonymous committee that decides who the cattle will go to, and how many. The committee accepts nominations for people in need of the replacement breeding stock, and a representative verifies the information and talks with the prospective recipients, then takes this information back the committee for decision, Linger said. Linger's website, HelpforSouthDakota. com, lists 31 cattle-donation collection sites across 10 states, including Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Nebraska, North Dakota, O k l a h o m a , S o u t h D a ko ta , U ta h a n d Wyoming, as well as Montana, which has the most sites with 13. As of Nov. 25, Heifers for South Dakota had received about 575 cows and, Linger said, those were planned to be distributed by T h a n k s g i v i n g . A n a d d i t i o n a l 1 5 0 replacement heifers will be held over the winter at Tom Brunner's Midland stockyard — with all their care, feed and vaccinations donated by different sources. The heifers will be artificially inseminated in the spring — with donated semen administered by specialists donating their time to AI — then immediately distributed to recipients. Linger said he expects another 500 head during a second round of donations in January. Some breeding stock will be purchased with monetary donations.
3
Hi-Line
Havre Daily News/Lindsay Brown Russ Allderdice opens his stock trailer Nov. 21 to let out his cattle donation into the JS Livestock yard south of Havre. Area ranchers brought cattle to the stockyard Nov. 2021 to send to the South Dakota ranchers whose herds were decimated by the October blizzard. north-central Montana, 32 donors provided 45 head of cows, heifers and calves. These donors came from Chester to Malta and near the Canadian border to the Bear Paw Mountains and Big Sandy. The cattle were gathered Nov. 20-21 at JS Livestock south of Havre where the stockyard's owner, Jeff Solomon, had volunteered his facility along with feed until the cows shipped out Nov. 22. Brand inspector Mark Larson volunteered two days of work verifying brands and writing bills of sale as local ranchers arrived with their donations. Nov. 22, each cow was pregnancy tested, vaccinated and had health certificates for transportation signed by veterinarian Roger Baxter of Chinook. Then Earl Brown and Jestin Brown of Earlz Trucking LLC, the two men who drove the cattle to Belle Fourche, S.D. — assisted by Solomon; two of the cattle donors who came back to help, Joe Ostrom of Big Sandy and Jim Heavey from north of Havre; Tom and Rene Brown; and Alisha Burcham — loaded the cattle for shipping. In other words, to borrow a phrase, it took a village to donate the cattle.
“If it was me in that position, the only thing I would appreciate at a time of such sorrow is a gift of hope,” she said. That's when she got together with Brown and they made an online connection with Miles City rancher Ty Linger who also had the idea to gather cattle donations and distribute these replacement breeding cows to those in need. Linger had already started an online effort called Heifers for South Dakota and was working out details including where to physically gather the cows and the best way to decide who gets how many cows. Oct. 10, Burcham and Brown turned to Facebook and their contact lists, and they spread the word about their plan to get 40 bred or breedable cows and heifers for donation and shipment to South Dakota ranchers. “Neither Alisha or I have any experience in organizing a cause like this,” wrote Brown on their Facebook page MT Ranchers Paying It Forward. “We will be learning as we go, but both feel moved and motivated to help.” As it turned out, help was very much needed, but other people and organizations were out there to share the load, and the people of north-central Montana did not disappoint.
What went wrong with Atlas The weather in western South Dakota had been warm for the end of September. Many areas were experiencing highs in the 70s and low 80s that last weekend in September, according to National Weather Service. And predictions were for temperature drops and some rain and snow from to a storm rolling across Wyoming and southern Montana into South Dakota. This winter storm, that The Weather Channel eventually dubbed Atlas, traveled east, primarily across Wyoming, eventually focusing its intensity in the area along the Montana-Wyoming border, with high winds, freezing temperatures and accumulating moisture. When this storm hit western South Dakota Oct. 3, it resulted in ½ to more than 2 inches of rain coming down for about 18 hours. Then the cold temperatures hit, along with even stronger winds creating a blizzard in west-central and southwestern South
Dakota. Up to four feet of snow fell, with winds of 50-plus mph and gusts up to 80 mph, in some areas. Winter storm Atlas was much more severe than was predicted, and the devastation was more severe than could be imagined.
The cattle toll Linger has been in ranching all his life, but, he said, he and his wife, Rosalie, are just starting to get established with their own ranch. Linger said that, after two hard years, 2013 was shaping up to be their best year on record with big calves and plenty of pasture, and they, like all the ranchers in their region, were looking forward to selling their calves. Linger said his herd was spared the worst of Atlas, but he felt the despair of those ranchers in South Dakota, who were also having a good year and were one to two weeks away from bringing their herds in and hauling them to market. When the storm hit, cattle still out on summer pasture drifted to low-lying areas for shelter, sometimes for miles and through fences, Linger said, adding that near Union Center, S.D., in an area that is shaped in a natural bowl measuring about a half-mile across, more than 750 cattle died. A major problem from the storm coming so early in the season is that the cattle hadn't grown thick winter coats, so had none of their own natural defenses, he said. The cattle were soaked to the skin, then temperatures dropped to below freezing and snow drifted into the low areas that had been used for shelter. Some cattle loss reports are still not in, some areas are still inaccessible and plenty of head of cattle are simply unaccounted for, but the final estimated loss, Linger said, is expected to be between 75,000 and 100,000 head of cattle. Photos from the storm's aftermath show coulees and drainages littered with sometimes scores of carcasses. The cattle died from a variety of conditions related to the extreme, unseasonable weather, he said, from hypothermia to suffocation, exhaustion and excessive fluid-buildup in their lungs.
■ Continued on page 10
Courtesy photo Jestin Brown, from left, Joe Ostrom and Earl Brown work Nov. 22 to load cattle onto a semitrailer at JS Livestock south of Havre. Ostrom is a Big Sandy farmer and rancher who donated a replacement breeding cow to Montana Ranchers Paying It Forward to be distributed to South Dakota ranchers whose herds were decimated by an early winter storm Oct. 3-5. The Browns, with Earlz Trucking LLC, transported the cattle to Belle Fourche, S.D.