Cattle producers should be on the watch for two types of poisoning during drought conditions. The potential for nitrate and prussic acid poisoning of cattle grazing or eating hay or silage is most often associated with droughts. During dry periods, livestock owners should be taking precautions with their animals, including testing forages.
If your pond is low due to drought conditions, this might be the perfect time to renovate poor or marginal largemouth bass, bluegill and channel catfish populations or eliminate undesirable fish such as bullheads, common carp, warmouth and green sunfish. If your pond is dry, you will need to make plans to deepen it before stocking fish next spring when, hopefully, it’s full again.
The drought we have been experiencing is of great concern to most land and resource managers. Wildlife species found in Noble’s Texas and Oklahoma service area have dealt with and survived drought before, and, as is often the case, the key to maintaining viable wildlife populations on any area is maintaining good habitat for the species of concern. As species requirements increase in variability, or when multiple species are involved, habitat diversity becomes increasingly important.
