Cattle herds shrinking as storms fail to end drought

Keith Kisling normally has 1,500 head of cattle on his land near the Oklahoma-Kansas border. Last year’s U.S. drought changed all that. For the first time in four decades as a farmer and rancher, he has none.

“We didn’t have wheat pasture this year,” leaving no cheap forage for the young animals to eat before they are sold to feedlots, Kisling, 65, said by telephone from Burlington, Oklahoma. “The ponds and creeks are dry.”