And what if your business is not network equipment or auctioning off cattle feed on the Web?

FORBES: A Year for Sizzle

"When I was a kid in the '50s ... it got real dry, but nothing like this, " said Marvin Helms, a 70-year-old farmer and rancher in central Arkansas who was compelled to sell his beef cattle after being short on feed.

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Ranchers had planned on using the grass to feed cattle... and the fires also destroyed miles of fences that keep the cattle in.

NPR: Fires Scorch Nebraska Cattle Industry

He also called for more inspections of cattle at the slaughterhouse and to ensure that the 1997 feed ban on ground bone meal is not being violated.

CNN: Democrats criticize administration over mad cow

After beef cattle have grazed on pasture land for a year or two, they are usually sent to feed-lots, where they are fattened on a diet of hay and corn to prepare for slaughter.

ECONOMIST: Branding in the west