Jul 24, 2026 · 18 min · 8 segments
Dry and drought conditions persist across the high plains. Destocking is strategically planned culling and marketing of herd animals to keep the core of a producer's herd intact to preserve a future…
Travis TaylorHostScott StinnettHost
Yeah, so I read the University of Nebraska Beef Watch when it comes out, and our colleagues up there in Extension, Aaron Berger and Brock Ortner from the UNL team, they were talking about having a strategic plan when you're destocking the cow herd.
And, you know, some of this stuff we've talked about earlier, but when we have limited grazing and we're having to destock the cows, what are we looking at to make sure we retain that core group of foundation females, particularly at these record cattle prices that we've seen? to be able to build back or destock the cows with building back in mind and i think you know scott some of the stuff we we've talked about before but as always i think we need to know kind of have a assessment of what are your operations goals what is your goal for your cow the type of cow that fits your operation what will your resources look like going forward you know here in our northeast colorado area where we're drying up some wells and irrigation We're having a little different environment, maybe not have as available winter resources that we've had in terms of corn stalks, things like that.
So how's that going to look going forward? Will our environment get easier or harder? I'm not sure.
And what kind of resilience will these cows need? You know, we're always changing our labor.
What's our labor going to look like? Our producers in our area are getting older all the time.
So have you identified your ranch goals? What the future of your ranch is going to look like? And then you and I love to talk about cows.
So what kind of cow fits in that production environment or our ranching parameters, if you will?
Right, and making these decisions on cattle kind of falls into two kind of hot-button words out there.
How are you going to power on through this dry session? Then the sustainability of the environment itself, the cows that match the environment the best.
But really, another thing you're talking about the age, you know, of our producers is part of our succession plan are a lot of our ranches may jump a generation, because that middle generation has gone off the farm somewhere off the ranch to make a living, maybe it's helped out but it's going to be that third generation that those grandkids that are going to take over.
maybe because they're young and they can do it and they haven't settled into a career yet.
So, so yeah, now you're saying the word de-stocking, but let's start with that.
It's kind of a fancy word for culling, but we're not culling because we're not necessarily just getting rid of stuff to get rid of it.
We're taking a strategic step and a plan to bringing us down to a group of cows that can make us through this dry season and go on.
Yeah, so I read the University of Nebraska Beef Watch when it comes out, and our colleagues up there in Extension, Aaron Berger and Brock Ortner from the UNL team, they were talking about having a strategic plan when you're destocking the cow herd.
And, you know, some of this stuff we've talked about earlier, but when we have limited grazing and we're having to destock the cows, what are we looking at to make sure we retain that core group of foundation females, particularly at these record cattle prices that we've seen? to be able to build back or destock the cows with building back in mind and i think you know scott some of the stuff we we've talked about before but as always i think we need to know kind of have a assessment of what are your operations goals what is your goal for your cow the type of cow that fits your operation what will your resources look like going forward you know here in our northeast colorado area where we're drying up some wells and irrigation We're having a little different environment, maybe not have as available winter resources that we've had in terms of corn stalks, things like that.
So how's that going to look going forward? Will our environment get easier or harder? I'm not sure.
And what kind of resilience will these cows need? You know, we're always changing our labor.
What's our labor going to look like? Our producers in our area are getting older all the time.
So have you identified your ranch goals? What the future of your ranch is going to look like? And then you and I love to talk about cows.
So what kind of cow fits in that production environment or our ranching parameters, if you will?
Right, and making these decisions on cattle kind of falls into two kind of hot-button words out there.
How are you going to power on through this dry session? Then the sustainability of the environment itself, the cows that match the environment the best.
But really, another thing you're talking about the age, you know, of our producers is part of our succession plan are a lot of our ranches may jump a generation, because that middle generation has gone off the farm somewhere off the ranch to make a living, maybe it's helped out but it's going to be that third generation that those grandkids that are going to take over.
maybe because they're young and they can do it and they haven't settled into a career yet.
So, so yeah, now you're saying the word de-stocking, but let's start with that.
It's kind of a fancy word for culling, but we're not culling because we're not necessarily just getting rid of stuff to get rid of it.
We're taking a strategic step and a plan to bringing us down to a group of cows that can make us through this dry season and go on.
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