Sierra Foothill REC

Later this month, the USDA's National Animal Health Monitoring System (NAHMS) will kick off its fourth national study of the U.S. sheep industry.

There's still time to register for our first-ever Sierra Foothills Rancher's Fire Academy! We'll be covering topics like using prescribed fire to control rangeland weeds, planning your own prescribed fire, fire tool basics, ranching hardening, and managing livestock during wildfire.

Some of you probably know what my family has experienced over the last 10 months. I won't rehash it all here - if you're interested, I invite you to check out my personal blog at www.flyingmule.blogspot.com. Needless to say, 2023 has been quite a year.

Barb goatgrass (Aegilops triuncialis L.) is a winter annual grass native to the Mediterranean region and western Asia. According to a UCANR publication, it was introduced to Sacramento and El Dorado Counties via the importation of cattle from Mexico.

Ranchers in Placer, Nevada, and Yuba Counties, along with UC Cooperative Extension (UCCE) and the County Agricultural Departments from these three counties, have established a Disaster Livestock Access Program to facilitate livestock and human safety before, during, and after wildfire and other emer...

Fair warning - you might want to file this blog post under the category, "Aren't Ranchers Ever Happy?!" I'll admit - last year, I was worried about warm temperatures, lack of soil moisture, and dried-up stock ponds here in the Sierra Foothills. We'd had the driest January-March ever recorded.

Looking back at more than 20 years of precipitation data I've collected since my family moved to Auburn, I can't say that we've ever had an average year that is, we've never had exactly 32.68 inches of rain. Some years, like 2016-17, we measure quite a bit more than average (62.

Raising Livestock on Rangeland is not an Indoor Sport...

The Nevada-Placer-Yuba Disaster Livestock Access Pass Program operated for its second year in 2022. This program, available to commercial livestock producers in the three counties, is the first (and so far, only) multi-county program in California.

After several multi-year droughts over the last decade, I find myself puzzled by the moisture that's been falling from the sky here in Auburn this winter! I find myself even more puzzled by the saturated state of our foothill soils! Over the last several weeks, as I've driven Highway 49 between Aubu...