Posted: Thu, 24 Nov 2011 09:20 AM - 13,176 Readers
By: Ciara O'Rourke
photography by Andy Sharp
Coyotes and other predators starved by the drought picked off 20 percent of the turkeys at Fresh Pastures Farm in Taylor, where Brie Rabon raises the birds for holiday feasts.
Normally, only 10 percent of her turkeys die, often in the first six weeks of their lives, when they're most fragile. But a worse fate looms if it doesn't rain 15 to 20 inches in the next five months, Rabon said.
She'll have to shutter the farm.
In September, the state climatologist warned that the drought could easily persist for years, potentially sticking around until 2020. Officials have estimated that agriculture losses have already topped $5 billion.
Rabon said she'll still raise chickens and other animals for her family but said that without rain she can't turn a profit selling the organic fare the farm specializes in.
"We can't keep running animals over the same dead pasture," she said.
Lacking fresh grass, she grew sweet potatoes and fed the green vines to the 160 turkeys that did survive, and she moved the birds to new pastures more frequently so the ground wouldn't wear out. In the heat of summer, Rabon hauled water out to the turkeys twice a day.
So it follows that Rabon's stock tanks are dry, and her water bill for all her animals is $500 a month.
Overall, she estimated she's spent up to 20 percent more on feed.
"The drought has been devastating," she said.
But she's selling the turkeys for $4.95 per pound, just like last year. She said she should have raised prices but she didn't think it was fair after her customers had preordered the birds. And she kept hoping rain would come.
To cut costs, she slaughtered animals she intended to keep to breed, including two calves and a pig that she couldn't afford to feed over the winter. The farm is selling the pork and veal for holiday meals, along with a few smaller turkeys she held back this week that will plump up by Christmas.
Sebastien Bonneu, who owns Countryside Farm in Cedar Creek in Bastrop County, said the cost of raising geese he sells for holiday meals has also spiked.
A pen normally sprouting green grass is all but dry, slick with goose waste where the birds' water has sloshed onto the ground. Bonneu feeds the 50 geese inside the pen with grain he buys at Callahan's General Store.
He raised his prices about 50 cents per pound this fall because the cost of grain has nearly doubled since last year. Today he's buying it for about $10 a bag, he said. The geese sell for $10 per pound.
Richardson Farms in Rockdale has soldiered through the drought but, like Roban, Jim Richardson and his wife, Kay, decided to bear the brunt of higher costs rather than raise prices. They raised 1,000 turkeys on their Milam County farm this year, selling out about two weeks ago.
The Richardsons kept the turkeys in mobile coops that they drag around the farm to give the birds fresh grass and insects to graze on. They didn't harvest some wheat planted in the spring so their turkeys and chickens could forage for grains during the summer and fall.
Some days, Jim Richardson said he frees the birds from their coop to parade behind him into the garden, where they can glean insects.
"We're having a real dry spell, for sure," he said. "It's hard to have much growth or any forage for them."
He said the fields of wheat provided the birds with a decent pasture, but such foresight won't matter much if the drought persists. The farm doesn't have an irrigation system.
"We'd have to buy feed to feed the turkeys," Richardson said. "But we would not relish that."
He supplements the birds' diet with grain that they grow on the farm, but with seed, harvest and storage costs, it's no less expensive than other organic grains they could pick up at the store, Richardson said.
The farm is selling turkeys for the same price they sold them for last year — $4 and $8 per pound, depending on the type of turkey. But production costs are double what they were last year, chipping into the Richardsons' income.
Because the farm is family-run, they can hold labor costs down, Richardson said. But the cost of packaging and fuel to deliver their fare is creeping up. "One of these days, we'll have to go up on (what the farm charges for the turkeys) or it will just erode away their profitability," Richardson said.
Mike Young, manager of Callahan's in Southeast Austin, said thriving turkey farms were once plentiful around Austin but that rising feed prices have halted some production in the area.
"Grain prices are playing heavy with everything," Young said. "It's decimating a lot of these people."
