Rodney Wortham, a 45-year-old engineer, has raised and tended to cattle for 18 years on his farm in Cleburne.  

Wortham, a husband and father of four daughters, has always dreamt of living and raising a family on a farm and owning his own herd.

However, as the worst drought in Texas continues to drag on, Wortham said holding on to his dream life is possibly the worst financial mistake he could’ve made.     

“I should’ve sold everything,” he said. “Trying to keep the herd fed is costing me a lot. If I could go back, I would’ve sold everything before it got bad. It’s really putting me in a hole.”

This year’s drought has made hay for cattle relatively scarce and expensive. Last year a farmer could’ve bought a bale of hay for $35 to $45. This year the prices have almost tripled.

Wortham’s farm is a perfect picture of the drought’s landscaping effects.

The ground on his 10 acres of land is noticeably dry, cracked and bare – uncommon for this time of year. The watering hole, which is fed by a natural underground spring, is 10 feet lower and shallow.

“Just look at it,” he said looking out over his land. “The ground is all burned up. This couldn’t have come at a worse time. I have two daughters in college and another one getting ready to go. Gas prices are going up and this year it’s very frustrating.”

Cattle, normally seen grazing along the ground, stretch toward low-hanging branches for leaves — the only visible green foliage they’ll eat.  

“We are in an extreme drought throughout most of the county,” said Clint Perkins, an AgriLife Extension agent. “Pastures and hay meadows are in bad condition. Feed prices for cattle producers are on the increase and they are talking about a serious cull of herd size if rainfall does not come.”

The rising hay prices are forcing farmers to downsize their herds to more manageable levels.  

The beating sun coupled with the drought has forced Wortham to cut his herd from 22 to 11.

“I can’t imagine what people with larger herds are doing because right now it’s bad and it doesn’t look like it’s getting any better,” he said. “I’ve had several neighbors who sold out because it wasn’t worth it.”

As Texas goes another week without any measurable rains, forage conditions continue to deteriorate.  

In a normal year, farmers begin feeding their cattle hay by late fall or early winter when the grass grows slowly, but Wortham said he began feeding his herd hay in mid-spring.

Wortham is hesitant to call his operation a farm or a ranch, however, his financial loss is a glimpse of what other farmers in Texas are experiencing.

“I’m pretty small compared to a lot of the operations around here,” he said. “I can’t imagine what they’re trying to do to stay afloat. Many of my friends have sold everything. I’m not making a profit this year and I can guarantee that unless there’s a miracle. Now we’re going into the winter when it’s drier and the grass doesn’t grow. I’m already counting my losses.”

AgriLife Extension Service economist estimate Texas has already lost about $52 billion in lost revenue cause by the drought.

According to a 2007 census conducted by the U.S. Department of Agriculture there were 2,746 farms in Johnson County. The census also lists that there were 656 farms between 1 and 9 acres and 1,214 farms between 10 and 49 acres, which includes Wortham’s farm. And more than 1,320 farms in Johnson County keep cattle, according to the census.  

Based on the census numbers, farm production is a big industry in Johnson County, accounting for $62 million in farm productions.

Many farmers are turning to the Internet to locate hay that’s cheaper and of better quality.

Haybarn.com, a site devote to helping farmers nationwide find hay during droughts, is one site seeing an increase in web traffic from desperate Texas farmers using ads to find hay.

Texas farmers are posting they “desperately need hay to feed cattle,” and that they are “looking for truckers to ship flatbeds of hay” across the country to their farm.  

Hay Barn was founded in 1996 and after the southern part of the U.S. experienced a terrible drought during the summer of that year.  

“Every time a drought affects a region, we see increases in the number of “hay wanted” ads on the website in the affected states,” said HayBarn.com owner Hank Neal. “In addition, we see a corresponding response in out-of-state hay growers advertising on our site.”  

People from any state can post on the site, but the Texas forum has almost five times more users than any other state. “This is one of the worst droughts we’ve seen and traffic to our site has increased about fourfold since March,” Neal said.  

Neal said more than half of the site’s traffic comes from users searching on search engines for “hay for sale.”

“I’ve seen some really sad emails from people desperate to find hay that is affordable,” he said.

In 2009, Johnson County ranked 16th in hay production, but there are several farmers that have yet to harvest a single cut of hay.

Wortham used Haybarn to haul hay from Maysville, Mo., to Cleburne almost 650 miles one way. He bought the hay for about $35 to $45 a bale, but shipping the hay adds additional costs, almost tripling the cost.    

“It’s no use buying local hay because it’s probably hay saved from last year and it’s no good. People are baling anything and everything they can and it has no nutritional value. It’s almost worthless,” he said.  

Last week, his shipment of 30 round hay bales weighing 1,500 pounds each arrived. Wortham said with moderation the hay should last until mid-April — hopefully by then the rains will return.

Wortham shares responsibilities of the herd with his father-in-law, who typically grows hay for the herd, but this year they have yet to grow any.  

“I hope it turns around next year,” he said. “I don’t know if it’s a pride thing or what, but this is the life I wanted — it’s the reason I moved out here. It’ll be very hard to give it up if things don’t get better.”