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Ag exemption vs Wildlife exemption


Hank_Hill

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Family has a ranch in central Texas that is currently being overseen by my grandmother and her sister. Has had ~20 cattle on it for the last 100 years for the exemption. With those two ladies getting pretty long in the tooth and me being away from home unable to really help out for a few years we are looking in to transitioning from ag to wildlife conservation exemption. While sad and hard, it seems ideal and besides the work burden it will also lift some financial burden from them not having to pay for the maintenance that cattle require. Was just wondering if anyone here had any insight in to any cons to switching.

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45 minutes ago, luke duke said:

Do you have enough land to make it worth leasing out to another rancher?

Area wise yea but most of it is heavily wooded/lakefront with pretty limited pasture space. Worked for us because we have so few and just let them roam and do their own thing for the most part. Not sure it would work for an actual rancher.

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6 minutes ago, Hank_Hill said:

Area wise yea but most of it is heavily wooded/lakefront with pretty limited pasture space. Worked for us because we have so few and just let them roam and do their own thing for the most part. Not sure it would work for an actual rancher.

Well like Luke said if you can make it work leasing to a neighbor, that would be your best bet.  I only have experience dealing with Hays County, but switching over to wildlife management (1-D-1) isn't hard.  There is work involved in maintaining it though.  You have to develop a wildlife management plan that meets certain criteria (like clearing certain percentages of cedar/brush per year, adding supplemental food/water/shelter sources).  There are consultant companies that can help you with the plan and stuff if you have a large enough place to make it worthwhile hiring them.  Once you get past the initial 5 year plan it's just maintaining stuff.  We've done it on our smallish property for about 25 years now.   Link to the application is below.

https://tfsweb.tamu.edu/uploadedFiles/TFSMain/Manage_Forest_and_Land/Landowner_Assistance(6)/50-129.pdf

 

 

Edited by Judge Roybeanbag
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