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JOHN DAY — Grant County ranchers are happy for greener pastures as they’re expecting an above-average hay crop this year.

Pat and Ken Holliday own the Holliday Land & Livestock Inc. ranch between John Day and Prairie City, along with a second location in Bear Valley south of John Day.

Ken Holliday said every year he’ll produce enough beef to make about 6 million quarter-pounders at McDonald’s. But it takes a lot of hay to feed those cattle, and every year Holliday’s hay fields will produce about 3,600 to 3,800 tons of hay. He said it takes 1.72 tons of hay to winter a single cow on his ranch.

“You have good years and bad years, and you adjust,” Holliday said. “This is a good year. This might be an unbelievable year. You have all these people talking about drought. We’re a long ways from a drought now.”

According to the U.S. drought monitor, on July 4 the eastern half of Grant County was abnormally dry, and the western half was in moderate drought. That’s a substantial improvement from a year earlier, when the southern half of the county was in extreme drought.

Holliday said 2023 has been a good year for soil moisture and precipitation, and he expects an excellent hay yield.

“This year we might hit 4,000 tons,” said Holliday, who began harvesting the hay in July.

Jack Southworth agreed — it’s been a very good year. The sprawling Southworth Brothers Ranch, owned by Jack and Teresa Southworth, lies about 20 miles south of John Day along Highway 395 and covers more than 12,700 acres of deeded land with additional Forest Service grazing allotments totaling about 30,000 acres in the Bear Valley area north of Seneca.

“We’ve had the best grass-growing June I can remember for the last 10 to 20 years,” Jack Southworth said. “We had lots of soil moisture. We had moderate temperatures. And combine that with occasional rainstorms, it was just a recipe for the grass to keep growing.”

Southworth thinks he’ll put up 1,800 tons this year.

“We might hit 2,000 tons,” he said. “It’s one of the best years in a long time.”

Gordon Larson, who tends Berry Creek Ranch just south of Canyon City, is also expecting a good hay crop this year because of the good snowpack and precipitation of the past winter and spring.

“I don’t believe it’s going to be the best ever, but it’s going to be substantially better than it has been the last few years,” he said. “We believe we’ll have at least 10 percent more than last year, and that’s being conservative.”

“We’ve had the best grass-growing June I can remember for the last 10 to 20 years. We had lots of soil moisture. We had moderate temperatures. And combine that with occasional rainstorms, it was just a recipe for the grass to keep growing.”

— Jack Southworth, Grant County cattle rancher