From the Fields - Billie Roney

By Billie Roney, Tehama County rancher 

Feed conditions in the mountains this year were phenomenal because of all the rain. The Debbie Downer part is we were not able to use all the feed because of the wolves. We had to leave early yet again. We had some cattle chased off. We left feed behind that would make you want to cry. We didn’t bring cattle home skinny, but we couldn’t stay. The biggest loss we have is not the individual animal but the lack of pounds we’re bringing home and the cows not breeding back the way they should because they’re getting run all over the place.

We took our first cattle to Eagle Lake in late spring, and we had one cow killed up there, but it wasn’t confirmed it was a wolf. We rotate our allotments, and every single place we had our cattle, the wolves were there. We continued to move the cattle, and the wolves would follow.

We continue to be in a study with Ken and Tina Tate (from the University of California, Davis). They put collars on our cattle to measure their stress levels. This is the second year we’ve done it. They have been out there living with not only our cattle but everybody else’s, so they know when a cow is being chased. They’ve been far more helpful than the state in helping us know when the wolves are after our cattle, because they can see what our cattle are doing by tracking our cows’ collars. They contact us immediately if they think something’s wrong. They’re generally the first ones to find somebody’s dead animal.

We’ve done a whole lot more business selling individual animals because we’ve been working hard on our genetics. Word of mouth on our carcass quality has gotten around, so we have plenty of individual sales. In the future, we think that’s how we might be able to slow down and still be able to recoup our costs.