Cattle producers in western North Dakota are still taking stock of the impact from the mid-April blizzard. Belfield, North Dakota rancher Byron Richard said sometimes to end a drought, you need a calf-killing storm. “Everyone around here is in the midst of calving. There was a fair amount of death loss; I would anticipate a 10 percent death loss. A group of our own cattle went out on a dam and fell through. We lost 16 of them. Another producer I know lost 70 head of cattle.” Richard said they’re grateful for the moisture even though calving has been challenging. “You can tell people are getting tired. We had guys checking cattle on horseback, because the snow was too deep. What would normally take an hour suddenly took three hours to make it back to the barn.” Photo credit: Wendy Bichler
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