HIGH & DRY; CATTLEMEN TRUCKING IN TONS OF FEED FOR COWS USUALLY CHOWING DOWN ON RAIN-FED GRASS.

Byline: Angela M. Lemire Staff Writer

Week after week, gray clouds hang low over Southern California's cattle pastures, taunting ranchers with promises of rain, but yielding little as grassy hillsides turn a brittle brown.

At Frost Ranch in Santa Paula, partners Robert Frost and K.B. Rogers have looked helplessly toward the skies for relief. Rain means grass, and grass means food for the 600 cows that feed off their combined 12,000 acres of rolling pasture off state Highway 126.

One of the driest winters on record means none of the velvet green lushness that typically results from winter rains.

``They were predicting some rain this weekend, but we'll see if it does anything. Every bit counts,'' Frost said, his words fading away. ``We're going to have to do a lot of catching up at this point. Every morning we're turning on the TV, just hoping for rain.''

South of Fresno, from the Pacific Coast to the state's east border, an unusually dry winter continues to scorch fields for roughly 1,000 cattle ranchers, said Frost, who serves as vice president of the California Cattlemen's Association, a trade association for the cattle industry.

Normal rainfall years shower Southern California from November to March, making grazing fields plentiful. Cows rely on green grasses for nourishment so they can provide milk for calves that are raised for beef, Frost explained.

Since the storm season began Oct. 1, less than 1.5 inches of rain had fallen on the Santa Clarita Valley as of Friday, making it the driest year since 1975, according to Newhall County Water District records.

Ranchers from Fort Tejon in Kern County who lease supplemental pastureland in the Santa Clarita Valley from The Newhall Land and Farming Co. have dealt with the drought by trucking in hay and other feed at a cost of $1 to $1.50 per head, said Matt Echeverria, senior vice president of cattle operations for Tejon Ranch.

Frost Ranch brings in 2 to 50 tons of hay in years with normal rainfall.

Since November, Frost has trucked in nearly 250 tons from as far as Nevada.

Smaller ranches, whose livelihood depends on raising and breeding cattle, have begun to liquidate assets, that is, sell some cows to feed others.

But according to the California Cattleman's Association, those cases are few, thanks to a strong market for beef this year.

``We had a very, very tough late fall and early winter. Luckily, we have a very good market this year. That helps,'' said John Braly, executive vice president of the cattlemen's association. ``It seems sometimes you just can't win. We finally get a decent market year, and we get a poor feed year.''

Even if steady rains come over the next few months, Frost said, they would have to be substantial, and perhaps later than March, for ranchers to ``catch up'' this year.

But he and others in the industry aren't betting on Mother Nature. They're hoping for disaster relief funds.

Braly, who oversees the federally subsidized Livestock Assistance Program in California, said ranchers can't qualify for assistance for supplemental feed if their counties have not applied for a disaster relief designation through the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The deadline for eligible counties to apply for USDA emergency relief assistance passed Friday. More than 300 ranchers in the counties of Fresno, Kings, Madera, Merced, Stanislaus, Mariposa, Tuolumne and Tulare submitted applications, according to a USDA spokeswoman.

Ventura, Los Angeles and Kern counties did not qualify to apply, the USDA official said, because they did not show a 40 percent loss of grazing areas, the minimum application requirement.

Still, Frost remains hopeful that ranchers in the three counties will also receive some help from the federal government.

And Braly says that if individual counties can get Congress to declare them disaster areas, Southland ranchers could qualify through the USDA for special tax breaks for their losses.

``County by county, we're trying to get support so we can state our position and try to get some relief,'' Frost said.

CAPTION(S):

3 photos

Photo: (1 -- color) Ranchers like Bob and Margaret Frost, pictured with her dogs, have had to buy hay to feed livestock this winter.

(2 -- color) Trucked-in hay is on the menu for Bob and Margaret Frost's cattle, left without their grassy pastures by the lack of rainfall this winter.

(3 -- Valley edition only) The Frost pastures are dry and bown, and the ranchers are hoping for more rain soon.

Phil McCarten/Staff Photographer