Livestock farms across much of Britain opened their winter forage stocks in the middle of July, according to a month-long conversation on The Farming Forum that tracked the driest July in 190 years from the fields. Contributors described suckler cows on hay in high summer, lambs weaned early onto creep feed at around £350 a tonne, farm springs dry for the first time in living memory and silage moving 90 miles by lorry. For the trade, the conversation reads as an early map of where feed, seed and water money will move this autumn.
By TFF News | 7 September 2026 | Livestock
The conversation, titled The Big Dry!, ran in the Livestock & Forage section from 11 July to 9 August 2026 and drew 222 visible contributions, which had been viewed 14,578 times and attracted 496 reactions when counted on 7 September 2026, an average of 2.23 reactions per contribution. More than half of the activity landed on the opening day. These figures describe one self-selected conversation, not a representative survey of UK livestock farming.
Winter rations opened in July
Feeding conserved forage months early was the thread running through the whole exchange, raised in 18 contributions. One North Wales contributor set the tone on the first day: “I simply don’t want to start feeding as we’ve had a good harvest however there is no buffer.” Another had already given in: “We made plenty hay about 3 weeks back. Now feeding it to keep suckler cows quiet.”
The accounts match the official picture. The Environment Agency’s dry weather report for 17 to 23 July recorded that livestock farmers had already begun using winter forage reserves because dry weather had hit grass growth, with July rainfall to 21 July at 3 per cent of the long-term average. By 10 August the government had declared 71.3 per cent of England in drought after the driest July in 190 years.
One arable and livestock contributor put numbers on the ground conditions: “35mm of rain since the 1st June. No rain in 30 days a week of 30 deg spread in the last 3 weeks.”
A country split in two
The picture was far from uniform, and 18 contributions turned on the regional divide. From the north west of the country came “Complete opposite situation here at the other end of the country”, while a north east contributor reported “No where near as bad as last year here….plenty of grass and stock is always laid content”. That split mirrors the official rainfall figures, which ranged from 1 per cent of the July average in the south east to 26 per cent in the north west. For merchants and hauliers it meant forage and grass keep moving unusual distances: one Northumberland contributor offered “Any sheep farmers looking for grazing ,i have over 100 acres good permanent pasture available.”
Forecasts became a sore point as the dry spell stretched on. The single most agreed-with contribution in the conversation was a Welsh farmer’s frustration: “Well it’s happened again. Rain forecast for the end of this week has disappeared and is now forecast for maybe the end of next week.”
Early weaning and a rising feed bill
Nineteen contributions dealt with weaning, selling and feed decisions pulled forward by the weather. Sheep farmers compared notes on creep consumption, one reporting “I’ve been going through 1/2t every 48hrs.” Another weighed cheaper home mixes against compound, noting that “with creep at 350ish/t it would be foolish not to consider alternatives”, though the counter-argument drew more agreement: “Every time I have tried to cheapen a ration, lambs have ended up eating it for longer, negating any benefit.”
The market logic of a drought year was spelled out plainly in one exchange about buying replacements: “Trade will be suppressed and you could end up paying more for second/third draw sheep when we get a bit of rain.” These are individual trading opinions rather than market data, but they show the calculations being run on farms that supply the store and prime trade.
Water and fire climb the risk register
Sixteen contributions raised water supply and eight raised fire. A hill farmer reported “main water spring has 100% dried up I have never seen that before”. A beef producer on mains supply described evening cut-offs which he attributed to his water company’s emptied local reservoir, an account we have not been able to verify independently: “Yesterday I had to stand by a water trough in the morning for a Hour and a Half as they would have destroyed it.” Others swapped practical borehole experience, from ochre contamination to drilling 170 feet to reach limestone water, the kind of conversation that precedes capital spending.
Late in the exchange a sheep farmer flagged the next worry: “The greatest concern I have now is the risk of fires.” He and others argued, as a matter of opinion, that ungrazed land nearby carrying standing dead grass raised the fuel load around working farms. The Environment Agency’s July report separately noted farmers reporting more fires during harvesting because of the dry ground.
Redesigning grassland for drier summers
The most commercially significant strand may be the 28 contributions on adapting systems. One dairy farmer described a deliberate move away from perennial ryegrass towards “festololiums, c/foot, fescues, timothy red and white clover, plantain and chicory, with a bit of drought resistant prg”, alongside reduced cultivation and permanent ground cover. His summary of the economics was blunt: “if you cannot get the production required by ‘normal’ methods, you have to try another way, or go bust”. He also reported silage trading over long distances in his area, including “2,500t from 90 miles away, in one case”, a figure we could not verify but which speaks to the direction of travel.
Another contributor framed the pattern rather than the year: “2018,2022, 2025 & now 2026 were all one in ten year droughts, That is four drought years in 8 seasons.” Whatever the meteorology, buying decisions are starting to follow that belief, in drought-tolerant seed mixtures, water infrastructure and forage insurance.
The question the trade is left with
The conversation also carried a heavy load of good-humoured asides, from sheep counting to plough collections, which is its own signal: this community talks through hard seasons together, and suppliers are part of that conversation whether present or not. The unresolved question underneath it all is the one the seed houses, feed compounders, drilling contractors and water engineers now have to price. If summers like 2026 are an exception, this autumn’s forage and feed spending is a one-off. If contributors betting on four droughts in eight seasons are right, grassland mixtures, buffer feeding systems and private water supply become permanent lines in livestock budgets, and the suppliers who move first will own that market.
Read the source conversation and analysis
Read the full conversation on The Farming Forum here.
Download the nine-slide conversation analysis deck: The Big Dry! conversation analysis (PDF).
This conversation had been viewed 14,578 times on The Farming Forum when counted on
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