Feeding hay harvested from vacant city lots or roadsides can result in hardware disease. The hay may contain nails, wire or foreign objects which can pierce the stomach wall and kill the animal, he said. Rumen impaction occurs when cattle are forced to depend on low quality forage substitutes and do not receive adequate protein. Insufficient drinking water adds to the problem, making it impossible for food to pass through the digestive system, he explained. Herd said the most serious problem is not a lack of feed but a lack of drinking water.
Some producers use salt to limit feed intake because it is inexpensive and takes little time.
This requires an increase in the amount of water the animal needs. If sufficient drinking water is unavailable, salt toxicity may occur. Texas cattle producers can recover economic losses from the drought if rain comes before spring, when two-thirds of all grasses will grow, Herd said. Despite recent rains in parts of Texas, there has not been enough water to fill stock tanks and ensure crop growth for the season. Charles Neeb, district Extension director in Fort Stockton, said although supplemental feeding continues throughout the year in far west Texas, the drought has made it difficult to keep up with nutritional needs of cattle.