Wyoming ranchers have been selling off pairs of cows and calves after this winter’s record-low snowpack led to severe statewide drought, according to a new report from the nonprofit news service WyoFile, in part because they did not know how they would feed them.

When it became clear water would be scarce, farmers in Carbon County were forced to grow hay instead of feed.

Dustin Bleizeffer, climate and energy reporter for WyoFile, said warmer-than-normal temperatures in spring sent snowpack downstream early, and it has been mostly dry ever since.

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"The kind of low snowpack situation in the winter really set the stage for low-flowing streams, reservoirs not filling," Bleizeffer explained.

Roughly 80% of the Cowboy State is experiencing severe drought, and nearly half of the state is experiencing extreme drought, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor. The Wyoming State Engineer’s Office is enforcing water restrictions, even for parcels that have enjoyed primary access based on first-in-time, first-in-right ownership dating back to the 1800s.

Many small reservoirs have reached “dead pool” levels, where water no longer flows downstream. Ranchers have had to drive herds to their favorite pastures weeks or even months before they normally would. And after grasses became scorched as early as July, Bleizeffer noted they are paying more for hay reserves.

"They're starting to really run low on pasture grazing and they're already starting to look at buying supplemental hay. Not only to get through the winter but maybe start putting their stock on hay even earlier," Bleizeffer observed.

Some ranchers have decided to move their remaining livestock to Nebraska in the fall to feed on corn stalks. Wyoming has experienced moderate to severe drought since 1999 and the only years with any relief were in 2008, 2014 and 2015. One rancher outside Moorcroft told Bleizeffer he is definitely seeing trends in weather conditions changing.

"He was looking back through the family records dating back 50, 80 years ago," Bleizeffer recounted. "He's noticed that there is a change in the seasonal patterns and that these patterns are just changing to where they're just not as reliable as they used to be."