In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

119 The focus of the livestock scene in New Mexico today is almost solely on cattle.1 Ninety-eight percent of all livestock sales are from cattle or the milk produced by them. That cattle account for the most sales and thus are New Mexico’s top cash crop (followed by pecans) speaks volumes. Cattle numbers have remained within the range of one to two million for more than a century. The New Mexico Department of Agriculture came up with a figure of 1,540,000 head for the state as of January 1, 2011, compared with 93,701,000 head nationwide. Of the cattle inventoried by the New Mexico Department of Agriculture on January 1, 2011, nearly a quarter of them—322,000—were milkproducing cows. In the 1970s and 1980s, a number of major dairies relocated from California to New Mexico, bringing in large numbers of Holstein cattle, the breed that accounts for nearly all New Mexico dairy cattle. In recent years, New Mexico has ranked anywhere from seventh to ninth in the nation for both milk production and number of milk cows in the state, and the dairy industry is New Mexico’s number-one agricultural activity and has the greatest economic impact on the state. Averaging around two thousand cattle per operation, New Mexico claims some of the largest dairy herds in the nation.2 Of course, weather cycles and national beef and milk prices have had a substantial effect on cattle numbers over the past 120 years, but the cattle population has remained remarkably stable until very recently. As would be expected, range cattle are now concentrated on the grassland expanses of the shortgrass prairie in New Mexico’s eastern and southeastern counties . The bulk of the milk cows are associated with dairy operations around Clovis, Roswell, and Las Cruces. Feedlot operations are clustered in the southeastern counties, particularly outside of Las Cruces. Livestock in New Mexico Today chapter eleven Cattle 120 • Chapter Eleven As this book went to press, the media reported that New Mexico’s cattle ranchers ended 2011 with the lowest cattle inventory in twenty-six years due to an extended drought.3 The USDA announced that the nation’s cattle herd had declined by 2 percent during 2011, to the lowest inventory of cattle since 1952, and that New Mexico’s herd had dropped by 10 percent to a total of 1.39 million head at the end of the year, with beef cattle most strongly affected. The cost of beef nationwide was soaring. Sheep The story of livestock in New Mexico over the 110-year period leading to the 2011 has been shaped by a steady and often precipitous decline in sheep numbers. From a population peak of close to 5,000,000 animals around the turn of the last century to a reported 110,000 in 2011, sheep growing has gone from being New Mexico’s leading industry to being one of relatively minor importance. Eighty-five percent of the state’s sheep are raised for their wool, which generated $1,110,000 in cash receipts in 2010. Only two regions in the state supported a significant, viable sheep industry in 2010. The three western counties that encompass the Navajo Indian Reservation—McKinley, San Juan, and Cibola—account for about half of the state’s 110,000 sheep. Another twenty-six thousand or so graze in Chaves and Lincoln counties on the open plains that lead to the Sacramento Mountains west of Roswell, with the industry that once ruled so mightily a virtual nonfactor in most of the rest of the state. New Mexico’s original breed, the churro, nearly faded out of the picture in the early 1900s, when only four hundred breeding individuals remained in the United States altogether. Then, in the late 1970s, a number of grassroots organizations joined forces to recover the breed, and by 2005 the Navajo-Churro Sheep Association had registered more than five thousand animals—the breed now officially designated as Navajo-Churro. Dozens of farms and ranches across the United States are now raising churros, and because of the desirability of its fleece and the distinct flavor of its meat, the future of this breed seems assured. As of 2012, at least one ranch in New Mexico was raising churro sheep for the market. Shepherd’s Lamb out of Canjilon in Rio Arriba County was selling whole and half lambs. The author can confirm that the gamy churro meat is delicious...

Share