Texas rancher David Henderson is struggling to feed his cows.

For the second summer in a row, drought and extreme heat are stressing the health of cattle in the Lone Star state.

Ranchers, like Henderson, are having to spend more money on animal feed and hay.

And with conditions likely to get worse, he says he may soon have to thin his herd.

"You know, now we hit August and this is normally our hottest, driest time of the year. We may not get much moisture, if any, this month. And that's something that you got to plan for. And the only thing I can think of, you, sometimes it calls for selling cows."

Texas is by far the top beef-producing state in the United States.

Henderson manages a herd of about 150 cows in Tennessee Colony in East Texas.

Last year, he was forced to sell about 30 cows due to the drought and he wasn't the only one.

Texas Farm Bureau says ranchers in East Texas got rid of more than 2.6 million cattle from January through August 2022 --

an increase of more than 480,000 cattle compared to the same period the previous year.

The drought and extreme heat impacts everything...

from how much milk the calves get to how the cows fatten up and how much they reproduce.

"it's hot. It's dry. It's the same as somebody being out in the heat. It takes your appetite."

While this year's drought hasn't been as bad as last year's,

Texas State Climatologist John Nielsen-Gammon predicts extreme heat will become the norm.

"For several more decades, this sort of heat will become normal in the summertime for Texas. And that, in addition, means that the heat extremes will be that much hotter and that much more severe."

Jimmy Reed owns the Cattle Ranch Supply store in Tennessee Colony.

He says that with cattle ranchers struggling, prices of beef steaks could rise:

"With everybody wanting to eat that ribeye and that T-Bone or those ribs, there's going to be less supply. So the price of beef will once again take a rise."

Young rancher Corey Davis said after plentiful spring rains he had been optimistic.

But those hopes have now been dashed:

"I thought, being a young farmer, I said, 'Well, we're going to make a bunch of hay and we're going to do all this because we got a bunch of rain, a significant amount of rain earlier in the year.' So, I was excited and you know, four or five months later, no rain for a month. So, we're back in a drought again."