Drought and Undomesticated Livestock

February 22, 2026

Nature's Precarious Balance: View from a cave where people once sheltered during snowy and frigid winters.

I don't check the rain gauge. It's dry. As is about half the United States. The winter has broken records for the warmest, the least snow, and longest period without snow. I walk the ridge and see desperate threads of green underneath the ocean of crispy winter grass. The weather is warm, although it has been most of the winter, spring is now around the corner. I throw the herd some cubes, peek at the water tank, make sure (triple-check) the gate is shut and locked, and head for home worrying, as always, about where our world is headed.

The eggs I eat for lunch are from free-range chickens and quail. I enjoy looking out my kitchen window watching the birds tear up the lawn (and landscaping) to forage. There is such peace in a hen going about her day. She is content in the moment, unaware how low on the food chain she is. We do our best to keep the big cats, raccoons, bears, and coyotes away, but everything likes the taste of chicken.

Chickens have been domesticated and kept for thousands of years (sheep closer to 10,000 years). My chickens have been bred to be docile and lay eggs. Survival is not a strength. Quail are similar. I was amazed when we first started raising Coturnix quail that the broody behavior had been practically eradicated from them. We were hard-pressed to find a bird willing to sit on a clutch and raise chicks. Eggs must be hatched in an incubator. These animals would not survive without us. But as long as these birds are given room to forage, clean water, and shelter they become a part of the balance to our farm. They eat waste, fertilize the soil, and provide food.

Buffalo are not domesticated like my chickens. They've been held within fences for only about 100 or so years. Similar to how heirloom vegetables have gained recent popularity due to the nutrition content not being diluted from years of selective breeding for traits that are more appealing to the big producers (think shelf-life, size, and color), buffalo are like an heirloom breed.

Without fences, the animals would no doubt find the grasses and forbs that provide the seasonal nutrition they need in this drought and move on to the next nearby location, fertilizing the land by decomposing the plant material, grazing only what's necessary to help the seasonal plant shed the top third of the stem and encourage deep root growth. In turn, returning more carbon into the soil and oxygen into the air. The prairie needs large grazers to prevent plant oxidation. For water, the animals would seek out muddy depressions and compacted buffalo wallows that provide water for microecosystems of plants and birds. These old wallows dot North America still. One being on our pasture from when the buffalo once roamed the area.

Our population needs a lot of food. There's less and less land to produce that food. Production agriculture appears to be a necessary evil. But when I watch the buffalo, I sometimes wonder if we shift our focus to other creative solutions such as food waste reduction, food quality and nutrition content (not poundage and size - read about food shrinkage here), filling gaps in animal mineral intake, and local food production if that might have a bigger effect than we think. If we care for the land, it'll care for our animals, plants, and us. Trained in environmental and agricultural engineering, I've witnessed the connection and dependency within an ecosystem. If the land and animals are respected, the rest may fall into place. That is something that we can control while we check our weather apps.