Texas is DRY, y’all. This year has been a rough one for central Texas agriculture. Simply put, there is no rain. When there is no rain, there is no grass. When there is no grass, we have to ship in hay and feed. When we cannot feed the usual nutrient sources to our cattle, we have to take a harder look at their nutritional plans and make sure nothing about their well-being is lacking.

For us, this has meant a nation-wide search to ship in the best combination of nutrients for what the cattle need right now. The cattle are happy, but it is prohibitively expensive for most cattle operations. We are fortunate enough to be able to absorb the financial loss this season brings, but many are not and many ranches are being forced to sell their herds.

It is heartbreaking for us to watch the way of life we love become unsustainable for so many. We feel like we’re slowly losing an integral part of American life.

As ranches cut back on cattle to meet a bottom line, the meat processing facilities are overwhelmed, creating even more strain on the system.

Why are we bothering with a micro lesson in ag economics? Because we believe in transparency. The values we set for our ranch do not change – we care about the well-being of our cattle first and foremost and we care about the quality of beef we deliver to your families. To keep with these values, we’ve sacrificed our timeline for delivering beef this year. We are taking an extra 6 months to bring beef to the table, which allows us time to keep up with nutrition and work with our packer to continue bringing the best beef to market.

We wholeheartedly apologize for this delay. We know many of you count on us to help feed your families and we have never been more grateful for that. We ask for your continued patience with us and trust in our family as we work in an increasingly challenging economic time. The beef will be worth the wait. We promise.

Respectfully,

The Hunter Lewis family