Working Ranch Magazine January/February 2025

Herefords 12-Day Rancher’s Journal by Kyson Smith FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 1 Each day starts with a look over the calves in our corrals. We just weaned on October 21, 2024, and we like to background the calves for around 45 days to ensure a healthy start without their moms. Every morning and eve ning the calves get around 4 lbs/head of hammer-milled 50% barley and 50% oats that we raise, store and make right here on the ranch. The calves for get about their moms really fast, once they learn to love the grain. It is a good time to do a health check on the calves while they are eating grain. Any calves that don’t run to eat, are doctored or monitored. After the calves finish their grain, they get a mix of first-crop alfalfa and grass that we grow. We then brought the fat steers

in to get a weight and the recently weaned steers that are in with them. We needed to weigh the fat steers to pick the three biggest, so we could haul them up to our butcher shop to be butchered for our customers. Before hauling the steers up to the butcher shop, I had to head up and add some belting to the alleyway to ensure the steers didn’t get spooked. I put up a hot wire around a small alfalfa field behind our home so that the herd bulls could graze it down. To finish off the day, we fed the calves and looked over them to make sure I started the morning by feeding the calves grain and hay and doing a health check. Upon feeding this morn ing, I found one of the fat steers slightly bloated. I walked the steer around to try to get the bloating to go down. I ended up having to run the steer into the working chute and put a tube down it to relieve the bloating. After the steer was on the mend I headed down to check everyone was doing well. SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 2

the cows in the field. One of the herds was starting to run a little low on feed, so I switched them to another pasture of about 40 acres. Our largest pasture is around 80 acres. Most are around 18-20 acres, which allows us to rotate aggressively. We are lucky enough to have a great piece of property where we can graze 140 cows and 140 calves all summer, and still put up enough hay to feed and sell during the winter. We have utilized a rotational grazing program since the start of the ranch in 1918. After lunch, I hauled the three fat steers up to the butcher shop located just a few blocks up the road from our mangers. With the help of Forrest Olsen, who runs our butcher shop, we were able to get the steers killed and hung in the cooler. We are a cus tom Butcher Shop, so we can hang the steers anywhere from 2-4 weeks, which aids in the flavor and tender ness. The bloated steer from my morn ing was checked on and is doing great. The calves were fed grain and hay at the end of the day and the kids joined in, with their day off of school.

58 I JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2025 WORKING RANCH audited readers run 21 million head of beef cattle.