Ah, Straw...

          If you stop to think about it, the survival of a newborn calf is a miracle.

          After living for 9 months in a zero-gravity, fluid-filled, temperature-controlled environment with his nutrients automatically provided through an umbilical cord, a calf is suddenly and forcefully expelled onto cold, hard ground.  Within minutes he is up on his legs and searching for the new source of his nutrients – his mother’s udder.

          A human baby has a similar experience of expulsion – but he is born into another temperature-controlled environment, where he is lovingly caught in a warm blanket, and delivered directly to a breast. 

This human baby can go nowhere on his own for months!  He is carried from one place to another; picked up often and held to the breast (or a damned rubber nipple thrust in his mouth) multiple times a day; he lives indoors, and is covered by a blanket.

It is 30^o today in Montana, with 6” of fresh, wet snow.  And yet that calf hits the ground, struggles to his feet, and finds a teat.  Once he is dried off and has a belly full of milk, he is good to go.  In two days he can outrun a man afoot.

If the calf has a good mama, she immediately goes to licking off that months-old slime that permeates his haircoat, and she stands patiently while he searches up and back along her underline until he finally connects.  The job of the cowboy is to assure that every calf is successfully expelled, licked off by his mother, and finds that life-giving fluid.

But the title of this piece is straw.

Most of you know that hay is forage that has been cut, dried, baled, and stored.  It is harvested in the summer when there is an excess, and is spread out in the winter when there is a dearth.

Straw is slightly different.  It is the stalk of the plant which is harvested for grain -usually wheat, barley, and oats.  This is cut in the fall after the plant is mature and has turned yellow.  The valued part of the plant is separated in the ‘combine’.  The grain is hauled one way, and the remainder is baled up as straw.

While good hay may be as high as 15% protein, straw has had its primary nutrient package removed.  Straw is likely to be around 5% protein.  It’s not particularly good feed.

In the winter, we put out straw when the temperature drops below zero.  The cows eat it, and the inefficiency of digestion helps keep them warm.  Whatever is left on the ground helps to insulate their underside.

In the spring, we put it out for the purpose of keeping the cattle up off the cold, wet snow and mud.  The cows find it quickly.

What is amazing is that a 24-hour old calf can seek out that nice warm bed, and propel himself to it!

Winter: Delayed Onset

            Normally, one speaks of a bad winter as a hyphenated number – as in “the winter of ‘78-‘79 when I was on a ranch west of Choteau.  The snow and cold began in November of 1978, and continued through February of 1979.  (You can read more about this winter in my book Ain't This Romantic!?!.)  But this winter didn’t start until February.

            Montana weather is notoriously fickle – a “typical” winter in Montana has temps on any given day ranging from 40 below to 40 above. In fact, on January 15, 1972 in the town of Loma, in central Montana, the temperature rose from 54^o below to 49°F above – in one day!

            Some years we get little snow in the winter months, and sometimes get large amounts of snow in the “spring” months.  The previous two winters here on the West Boulder we have had significant snow in the winter months, and have been quite pleased to have a serious snow-blower.

            Some years we have snow and below zero as early as November, and I have seen below-zero weather and serious blizzard in April.  (More of these stories in the book Ain’tThis Romantic!?!

            This winter didn’t begin until February.  The cows had been out grazing until then, and we didn’t begin feeding hay until late January, when they had grazed off all the available grass.

            We all enjoy an open winter, but I’m always aware of the fact that we will pay for it later.  If we don’t pay for it by having bad weather in “the spring”, then we’ll pay for it with poor pasture and fires in the summer.

            February of this year has been brutal. It’s the 2^nd coldest February on record for Montana, and we have knee-deep snow.  And this is the time when many ranchers are calving.

            A new calf can stand ten below just fine – if he is dried off and has a full belly.  But being pushed soaking wet out of the womb and into a snowbank is a recipe for hypothermia.  And that hypothermia slows the brain processes enough to delay standing and sucking.  Many calves born outside in that weather don’t make it.

            Those ranchers who do calve in January and February all have sheds into which they can take new calves – or cows who are about to calve.  They check their cows regularly all day, and several times at night. We have such a shed, but we choose to wait until mid-March to begin calving – when the days are longer and the nights not quite so cold.

            We took on another 45 cows in January, however, that are bred to begin calving now.

            We always throw up an electric fence to contain the “heavy” cows in a field that is entirely visible from the house.  But the ground is frozen.  We’ll have to drill into the dirt to drive in posts for our temporary fence.  And the deep snow makes it difficult to trail in the cows that are near to calving.

            “They” say that if March comes in like a lion it will go out like a lamb.  But March 1^st was a pleasant interlude of 20^o above and sunny.  I hope that lamb-like 20 above doesn’t portend a March going out like a lion. 

            It was 10 below on the morning of March 2^nd, with a forecast for an overnight low of -18^o.

Cuttin'?... or Sortin'?

            The terms are often used interchangeably, but there really is a difference – and I didn’t put a name to it myself until recently. 

            Most people have watched cutting competitions on TV or YouTube.  In these events a yearling steer or heifer is cut out from a small group and the horse given free rein to swoop and dive, dramatically demonstrating his skill at holding the animal away from the herd.  The arena is small and open, the footing is clean and level, and the critter is allowed to return to the herd after being played by the horse for a short time. 

            Indeed, we do a similar kind of cutting in the spring when we cut heavies from the “outside” bunch into the calving field.  We feed a line of hay near the gate, ride slowly up and down until we identify a cow that is near to calving, nose her out of the bunch, then turn the horse loose to do his thing putting her out the gate.

            But more often, we are sorting cattle: separating one class of animals from another.  At branding time we sort off the cows from the calves, and we do that again in the fall.

            Our sorting process is to have a couple of riders in the main corral, pinching out cattle in groups.  Usually the cows are the more eager to escape the pressure, so we turn back the calves and let the cows string out up the alley.  Another rider stands near the gate and lets the cows flow by.  When the flow of cows slows down and a group of calves presents itself, the riders will turn the cows back and let the calves string out.  The man in the gate will take a few steps to the side to block the outside gate and turn the calves into the catch-pen.

            We did this in October when we vaccinated the calves, and we did it again a week later to split the calves off for weaning.

            This week we sorted the calves again.  First we split off the steers and turned them out, then we moved more into a ‘cutting’ mode to pull off those heifer calves that we will save to add back to the herd for replacement of those cows that are old, crippled, bad-bagged, or which have not re-bred.

            Training these horses to be able to accomplish this cutting and sorting takes time.  In fact I had ridden my Kentucky Colt for seven years before he finally settled down enough that we could do this kind of close-in corral work. 

Of course all of our gates have “cowboy latches”, and all of our horses will work those gates.  We can even sidle up and open our wire gates from all of our horses – which is expeditious when we have some cattle headed toward a gate and we want to get in and away before we lose them.  We do, however, have to get off our horses to close those wire gates behind us.

These Boots AIN'T Made for Walking

Every time I ride into a pen full of cattle I am reminded of the 1966 song by Nancy Sinatra: “These boots are made for walking”.

But the boots I wear when ahorseback aren’t made for walking.  In fact – according to George Leonard Herter – they were designed for dancing.

My first real “riding boots” were purchased many years ago - made by Tony Llama – and they cost a lot of money.  But they fit my oxbow stirrups and gave me a sense of security while riding.

The style has changed in recent years, and I can no longer find a pair of off-the-shelf boots to suit me – so I buy custom boots from a local maker.  And they are expensive.

But my legs have become even more valuable to me over the years, and so the value of boots that protect those legs is even higher.

Many “cowboys” tie up their horses when the cattle are safely in the corral, and enter the pen armed only with a sorting stick.  Not us.

It takes a few years to develop a good sorting horse – but that horse is quicker, the view is better from four feet up, and These Boots Ain’t Made for Walking!

There is cow “poop” everywhere in the corral!  A man afoot is going to step in it!  Cow “poop” eats up leather!

It has taken a few years, but I have developed a string of good horses.  Our gates all have “cowboy latches”, and our horses can each work those gates.  We can sort those cows quicker and easier ahorseback than we can afoot.

And “These boots (Ain’t) Made for Walking”.

Yellowstone - the series

            Apparently this series just premiered in the last week – and I’ve already had a couple of emails.

            I rarely watch TV, and I won’t dignify this show by adding myself to the Nielsen Ratings.

            Wikipedia says this series “follows the conflicts along the shared borders of an Indian reservation, land developers, and Yellowstone National Park”.

            Well, this show is ostensibly about cows – but it is pure bullshit!  The only conflict that could exist along those shared borders are those generated by a greedy landholder.  Neither did I ever watch the show “Dallas”, but it sounds like the same kind of drama.

            One of my followers said that everyone in the show has on clean shirts, clean gloves, rides in a clean pickup, and never has to stop to open a wire gate – something he has never seen in Montana.

            Wasn’t it Costner who “danced with wolves”?  I’ve never met the guy, but it seems like he’d do anything for a dollar.

            I’ve met my neighbor Michael Keaton, on the other hand, and he has proven to me to be a genuine guy.

            Of course no one asked me - but I give the series "Yellowstone" two thumbs down.

            If you have a REAL interest in the REAL West, you can read about it in this blog.  I've lately been a slacker, but you can scroll down and find out what happens on a real ranch in the real west.

            And you can buy my book - Ain't This Romantic - on Amazon, and learn about the REAL drama in the modern, and REAL West.