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>> but westward the drought is relentless and the wellnitzes have made more drastic decisions. selling off another 100 cattle and moving half of the remaining herd off to greener pastures in south dakota. and things don't look to be getting better any time soon. climatologists are predicting 20 13 will be another drought year in the u.s. and the nebraska forest service is preparing for another summer filled with potentially devastating wildfires. overall, the cost of last year's drought are estimated at $50 to $100 billion nationwide. if it continues, it could become the costliest natural disaster on record in the u.s. whether you point the finger at man-made climate change or mother nature, most scientists agree droughts are likely to continue if not worsen in the coming years. >> morgan. >> thank you. hope i wasn't too much of a burden. >> no. >> it's been great. take care, guys. bye-bye. >> kenny, tammy and cain are ranchers. it's in their blood. it's what they do. no matter what the future has in store, people like the
i want to see what the drought means to the farmer or rancher suffering through one, so this week i'm going to work as a ranch hand for the wellnitzes. >> hi, i'm morgan. >> welcome to our ranch. >> where we're going today, we're going to try to fit you to a horse. >> okay. good luck with that. >> how often have you rode before? >> i grew up riding, but, you know, living in new york city you don't do too much horseback riding. we'll see how it goes. >> you're taller than i thought. we might have to extend the stirrups. >> make you look like a jockey. >> let's go. where's the horse? >> they're out behind the barn. we'll go catch them. >> okay. >> the one over to your right. >> yep. itching his nose on the fence. >> tammy and kenny have been ranching this land for 20 years. >> you took the easy one, didn't you? >> you want to trade?
>> yeah, it's not a good year. >> for kenny and tammy, liquidating the ranch seems unthinkable. they know that the best they can do is what they're doing. to just keep on keeping on. and praying for rain. [ male announcer ] here's a question for you: where does the united states get most of its energy? is it africa? the middle east? canada? or the u.s.?
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>> in addition to grass and hay, kenny feeds his cattle corn, the key ingredient to fatten them up for market. more weight means more money. so what's this right here? >> corn distillers. they take the corn and they distill it down. this is what's left. >> right. >> we fed this for about 12 years now. >> how is the price of this changed? >> this has gone up from $20 a ton to $300 a ton. >> rod johnson told me yesterday it was $435 a ton. >> wow. it's already gone up another $135. >> yeah. >> that's a lot. >> the cows are pretty hungry. >> there's a big nugget. >> they go right up. higher corn market, less income in our pocket, less income, high expenses, you're not in business very many years. >> see, i'm intimidating. that's what it is. i'm so scary.
Inside Man-20131230-05:47:15 archive.org - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from archive.org Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
we had them in at 480. they were 469. it's 140 pounds light for the normal time of year that i would sell them. so that's -- that's less money in my pocket, but we'll take this to the bank and deposit it and it will give us an opportunity to buy a little more hay, a little more time, and decide what we're going to do with everything else. >> yeah. kenny and tammy will use the money from the sale to pay back the loans they took on to get through the summer. while it's not an ideal circumstance, it's one more step they can take to stay afloat. >> 75 degrees -- >> we got the check. >> $165,578. >> it goes very fast. ♪ >> hey, fred, how are you?
>> we're going down to the scales to weigh them. >> the total number of calves you're selling today is? >> 200. >> 200. that has to be a hard decision. >> yeah, it really is. very hard. very difficult. >> you can see their trucks. kenny's steers will be weighed in town, where he'll be paid based on the average weight per animal. this year he's selling two months early and hoping to get about 480 pounds per steer. in times like these, every pound and every dollar counts.
if you live in certain parts of the country, drought is as unthinkable as a drought or tsunami. it just happens somewhere else. but if you live in sheridan county, nebraska, you're living through one of the costliest natural disasters in u.s. history. sheridan is now one of the driest counties and one of the driest states in the entire country. and nobody around here knows that better than kenny wellnitz. along with his wife tammy and son cain, he breeds and raises 800 black angus cattle on ranch land which he sells to the beef market. now besides facing a natural disaster, kenny is facing a desperate economic crisis. the drought may make him reduce the size of hi herd.