RUSH, Colo. (KOAA) — While concerns grow over a lack of snowpack on Pikes Peak and other Colorado mountains, one rancher in eastern El Paso County says above-average rainfall and a warm winter have kept his cattle healthy.
I visited Rush, located more than 50 miles east of Pikes Peak, to speak with Louis Martin. In his 18 years raising cattle in the Eastern Plains, Martin has experienced a wide range of weather conditions.
"We expect dry weather," Martin said.
He recalled that 2012 and 2013 were exceptionally dry years for his land.
"Just back over the hillside over here we call it the bog areas, that was the only place we had left that we had grass," Martin said.
But for 2025, the conditions are different.
"We’re about 2 inches above our average annual precipitation right now," Martin said.
The added moisture on his land, combined with a warmer-than-usual winter, has yielded more calves.
"Our pregnancy rates were very good this last year," Martin said.
As a Colorado rancher who relies on rainfall, Martin plans for an average of 13 to 14 inches of rain a year. If the rain does not arrive, he utilizes planned grazing.
"We’ll probably have somewhere around 20 to 25 different paddocks that these cattle move through during the summertime. We can always see how much fast the grass is growing ahead of us and how much or how slow or fast it may be recovering behind us," Martin said.
He also adjusts the number of cows on his land depending on the weather.
"We start adjusting stocking rates we either wean our calves early we might sell all of our older cows or reduce the number of yearlings that we have coming in," Martin said.
Though moisture is in good supply in Rush, Martin has heard from ranchers on the Western Slope who rely heavily on snowpack.
"I’ve been working with a ranch in the Yampa area and uh they're right now about 60% of their normal precipitation for the year," Martin said.
His advice to other ranchers is to look into the history of their land to see how it fared in years with similar moisture levels.
"See what drop in forage production has been and that helps you to plan going forward uh and estimate well I think I'm gonna be producing this much forage how many cows will it carry and for how long," Martin said.
Martin noted there is an online database called the Rangeland Analysis Platform. The tool allows ranchers to look up past drought conditions and compare historical years to current weather patterns.
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