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Cattleman is assessing losses following Bovee wildfire

Nebraska Sandhills rancher Lemoyne Dailey says he’s spent the last two weeks assessing damages from the latest wildfire.  “We’ve lost somewhere between 800 and 900 acres we’re estimating,” he says. “I haven’t figured out the miles of fence yet, but I’m going to say probably close to eight or nine miles of fence. And to my knowledge, there was no livestock lost in the fire.”

He tells Brownfield his cattle will spend the rest of the fall and winter on cornstalks.  “We’re fine for now,” he says. “We’ll have the heifer calves here at home, the steers are in the background lot. So we’re just kind of waiting and sitting on it, but by next spring we’ll have to start working on fences.  Right now we could patch the wires but as far as burned-off posts and fence down, we’re just waiting to see what happened on programs there.”

Dailey says in addition to the fire, pastures were overgrazed due to the lack of rainfall, and he intends to sell half of his remaining cows this fall.  “We’ll be understocked,” he says.  “If we do get rain, that’ll be a great thing, but if we don’t get rain there’s enough grass on the home place to run the remaining cows as long as we get a little bit of rain.  The place that got burnt we’re just going to let it set aside a thing for the next year and maybe use it next winter.”

Dailey sold 110 cow/calf pairs earlier this year due to the drought and unfavorable market conditions.

The Bovee Fire burned about 15,000 acres across the Nebraska Sandhills.

AUDIO: Kellan Heavican interviews Lemoyne Dailey, Nebraska cattleman