<\/p>\n
With the recent drought in the West, ranchers might be forced to find more sustainable options. And some researchers are looking to a breed of cattle from the past to find the answers.<\/p>\n
Jon and Susie Eickoff are used to working together and going home together. Jon says that over three decades they have only been apart a couple of times.<\/p>\n
\u201cExcept for a business trip to Houston, Texas and a stint that I spent in the hospital for 10 days, I can say that in 30 years those are the only times we have not been together,\u201d said Jon Eickoff.<\/p>\n
That stint in the hospital was due to a heart attack Jon suffered while being the CEO of a fast-paced successful engineering services company that he managed with Susie. The couple say they decided just years afterward that it was time to leave the \u201cpressure cooker\u201d career and trade it in for a slower-paced ranching life near Faywood, New Mexico.<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing out here in a beautiful place with beautiful scenery and around some nice docile animals, it\u2019s a nice place to be,\u201d said Jon Eickoff.<\/p>\n
Those animals are criollo cattle.<\/p>\n
Susie Eickoff says while trying to decide on a cattle breed, they watched as ranching friends struggled during New Mexico\u2019s recent drought.<\/p>\n
\u201cFriends of ours had a large cattle ranch and they were selling off their cattle because there was no grass for the cattle, there was no water for the cattle, it was very, very severe on them,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
The Eickoffs say they came across research being done on criollo cattle at the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s Jornada Experimental Range that showed the breed could adapt to the arid desert environment in Southwest New Mexico.<\/p>\n
Susie Eickoff says they read up on a lot of the studies being done on the criollo before selecting a breed that has been in the region for hundreds of years.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a sustainable animal. It requires less food, less supplementation, less water, all of those things that the British breeds require more of,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
She says that once a rancher goes through the struggles of drought, it\u2019s very difficult to go through it again.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey can survive these droughts and you know, it will get us through the tough times,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
Jon Eickoff says that they are lucky to have 141 acres of land with irrigable water.<\/p>\n
\u201cWater is a premium in this part of the country,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
How much of a premium? Research published in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Research Letters found one in 30 wells in the west is probably dry. The study by Stanford University and the University of California looked at data in 17 western states covering more than two million groundwater wells.<\/p>\n
In Eastern New Mexico, there is concern in Curry and Roosevelt counties about increased use of the Ogallala Aquifer.<\/p>\n
Alex Rineheart, a hydrogeologist with the New Mexico Bureau of Geology and Mineral Resources, says he worries about the lack of recharge to the aquifer.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven if the drought reverses and we end up in wet period for a while, it\u2019s not really going to change anything,\u201d said Rineheart.<\/p>\n
Rineheart says officials are looking into piping in water to the area as a solution.<\/p>\n
Alfredo Gonzalez, an animal scientist at the range drives out to check on a group of criollo cattle on the range in a pasture that he says is around 6,000 acres.<\/p>\n
Gonzalez is lookiing at how this group of criollo compares to a group of Angus and Hereford crossbred to see how the cattle respond to the desert temperatures.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey seem better adapted to the hot temperatures,\u201d said Gonzalez.<\/p>\n
Gonzalez says not only does the criollo thrive in the desert temperatures, but by monitoring the cattle with GPS tracking collars, they found the breed can travel further from water.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ve found that they go days more without water, again, they are responding by going out further and so they distribute a lot better than the Angus. So those are things that the researchers are continuing to collect data on the breed,\u201d said Gonzalez.<\/p>\n
That data also includes understanding the criollo\u2019s diet. He says the breed is helping restore grasslands that have disappeared due to overgrazing in the state.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo with them using these areas a lot better, a lot more diverse plants, (then) they\u2019re utilizing water in a better manner,\u201d Gonzalez said. \u201cI think this is good for the remediation of our grasslands.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Eickoffs say the breed of cattle has improved the grasslands on their ranch.<\/p>\n
As for a possible solution for ranchers facing drought, researchers at the USDA\u2019s Jornada Experimental Range north of Las Cruces continue their work on the criollo.<\/p>\n
\u201cBecause they\u2019re grazing constantly, they\u2019re spreading seeds for us, they\u2019re fertilizing seeds, even with their small hooves they\u2019re doing very little damage to what\u2019s here,\u201d said Jon Eickoff.<\/p>\n
The Eickoffs also say criollos birth more easily \u2013 they\u2019ve never had to pull a calf \u2013 and the breed seems to be great at avoiding disease. It\u2019s another insurance policy for this three-person ranching operation facing conditions that ranchers in the West continue to deal with.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not a pessimist, I\u2019m just a disillusioned optimist. It\u2019s really difficult to look into the negative side of things, but if it does go negative, I\u2019m sure going to be glad there is going to be criollos around,\u201d said Jon Eickoff.<\/p>\n
A breed that has been around hundreds of years, may offer sustainable answers for ranchers in the West.<\/p>\n
This story is part of the State of Change project, produced in partnership with the Solutions Journalism Network. It was published on hcn.org <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" criollo cow can thrive in hot, dry conditions that are difficult for other breeds<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":102930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[1737,281,21,738,13,295],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-102929","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-agricultural-research-and-technology","tag-agriculture","tag-cortez","tag-environmental-issue","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-water"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=102929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/102929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/102930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=102929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=102929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=102929"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=102929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}