Molalla, Ore. ? After the discovery of mad cow disease in neighboring Washington state, rancher Steve Coleman’s herd of Angus beef cattle lost about 15 percent of its value — a drop that Coleman estimated cost him about $75,000.

Yet his outlook is not glum, since the discovery of the potentially fatal disease came after sales were buoyed by the popularity of the high-protein Atkins diet and a ban on Canadian beef after mad cow was discovered there.

Coleman drives a newish Dodge Ram pickup. He stores hay in a massive new sheet-metal barn. As with other ranchers, the spike in beef prices this year let him whittle away at debt on such investments.

“This is going to drop the ax on some ranchers,” Coleman said. “But fortunately we were able to make enough on the front end of this. We got even with our financial people.”

Ranchers are in a better position to weather the downturn than they have been in years, even as mad cow throws those gains in doubt, said Dianne Johnston, director of the Oregon Beef Council.

Things were just starting to look up after years of drought and a sour economy, she said.

“Finally, in the last few months, ranchers have been able to put a few dollars into their back pockets,” Johnston said. “Hopefully this will be short-term.”

Although beef prices have fallen sharply — by 15 cents a pound in a week — they fell from a historic high and are still higher than a year ago, in spite of dire predictions of the effect of mad cow.

The price for feedlot-fattened cattle rose 34.3 cents a pound this year, reaching a peak of $1.09 on Oct. 17, according to Dave Weaber, a beef industry analyst at Cattle-Fax, a Denver-based agricultural research company.

Rancher Steve Coleman feeds his black Angus beef cattle at his ranch outside in Molalla, Ore. After the discovery of mad cow disease in neighboring Washington state, his herd lost 15 percent of its value, or about 5,000, Coleman said.

After mad cow was discovered in a Holstein in Mabton, Wash., prices fell from 91 cents per pound on Dec. 22 to 78 cents on Dec. 26.

Still, that is a higher price than ranchers saw in January, when fed cattle traded for 74.7 cents a pound.

Still, ranchers say the windfall mostly vanished in payments for debts racked up over several lean years. And a crisis may be looming as banks call in lines of credit on cattle ranchers because of the mad cow scare, Coleman said.

“Banks are going to be awful standoffish in their attitude to this business for the time being,” he said. “We’re at the mercy of bankers.”

Ranchers say they see hope in suggestions by U.S. government officials that the infected Holstein was born in Canada.

But beef industry exports say U.S. export markets are likely to remain closed, at least in the near future.

Coleman has gone into a defense crouch, saying he will not sell cattle until the market improves. He had intended to sell 250 heifers this winter but will instead keep them in a pasture until the calves are born this spring.

Buyers quickly told him they were no longer interested, anyway, at least in the near term.