Back in the 1970's, after two back-to-back years of dry weather, Southern Iowa was hit harder from the drought than the rest of the state, or maybe it just seemed that way. We watched the corn and soybean crops wither before our eyes. Green pastures turned brown and quit producing new shoots. Cows had to be kept in those parched pastures. The herd nibbled away at the remains until the grass was grubbed into the ground. The land, the animals and the farmers awaited rejuvenating rainfall.

There were two obvious choices for cattle farmers caught in the middle. They either sold their herds at a reduced price or bought feed for them. Either choice was an economic hardship. While waiting for rain, some indecisive farmers unintentionally starved their herds to death.

A farmer didn't like to hear his cows had starved. He was more likely to believe there was some exotic disease at work. I performed many post mortems during those two years and when I told the farmer the cause of death was starvation, he typically got angry and called another vet. I should have put it to him this way, the cow died of chronic idiopathic progressive malnutritional hypophagia of environmental origin, the scientific description of starvation.

I wasn't in a hurry the day I headed back to the clinic after one of those fruitless calls. I looked over the burnt countryside and didn't see a very pretty sight. The pastures were so barren you could have easily sighted a golf ball if it had been driven on any part of the ground. I saw a small group of cows under a tree, gathering what little bit of shade there was. One cow walked out of the pack and stopped to look at a big old withered bull thistle. I said to myself, "Now, she won't eat that bristly old thistle, will she? Naw, she couldn't." That old cow started ripping away at that thistle like it was her last meal. She chewed and chewed until she forced it down her throat. She took another bite, chewed and swallowed until the thistle was gone. Now, that old cow was a hungry one.

Farmers had it just as bad in the years that the weather was too wet. There was ample grass for cows, but the grass was washy and had less food value. In the winter, the abundant baled grasses were low in nutrition. Cows starved to death then, too, if the bales weren't supplemented with purchased feed. It was a slower process than that caused by drought but the result was the same.

Good and bad times were a roll of the dice in farming. There were some years when animals, farmers and vets all got hungry together.

Dr. James Lucas was born in and raised on a farm in Southern Iowa. He has spent 36 years as a veterinarian in his hometown of Bedford, Iowa. His book entitled Birth in a Chicken House (Stone Tablets Publishing, 1999) is a collection of his stories filled with memorable characters and humorous day-to day experiences of a small town veterinarian dealing with people and animals alike.