AMARILLO, TEXAS -- It wasn't just the cattle that were bellowing at the Amarillo Livestock Auction Tuesday.
Many cattle owners are selling their cattle a lot sooner than they would like.
"It's bad for the producer because they would like to get their calves bigger. They're having to sell their calves from 200 pounds to 350-400 pounds and they normally sell at 500 to 650 pounds a calf in the fall so they're taking a cut in pay that way", says owner of the Amarillo Livestock Auction, Keith Parrott.
What's to blame? All fingers point to the drought.
"There's no hay, there's no grass, there's no water. The drought has taken a toll on everyone", says cattle buyer, Ashley Noland.
"It's getting crucial on finding hay. They hay prices are going every two weeks a round bale of hay is going up 10 to 15 dollars a roll and it's just going to get really hard for people to feed cattle on their place unless they have grass", adds Parrott.
Because auctions are full now, cattle owners are going to suffer this fall.
"The cattle that we normally sell in the fall, they're already going to be gone so we're going to be short a cattle come fall. It'll just be a sitting period, you know, you'll just have to wait and no income coming in so you'll just have to wait until the rain comes and restock", says Noland.
It won't be long before the rest of us start seeing the effects of these early cattle sales.
"We'll have high meat prices because of the supply and demand, so it's just going take a domino effect on everyone", continues Noland.
So without the rain, we all suffer and Mother Nature, once again, proves she's a force to be reckoned with.
Noland went on to say that despite the drought, the cattle market it good right now. With so many cattle being sold, including mothers, fewer offspring are being produced. That means total numbers are down, demand is up and so are the prices.
