Branding - The Idaho Rancher's Wife

Days of Branding: Castrating Bulls to Steers

April 25, 2014 by Allison

Branding day really is a big day for some of these calves, especially the bulls. The poor fellas especially have a big change… I kinda feel bad for them- glad I’m not destined to be a steer.

You might not think it, but castrating is an important part of our operation of producing the best beef possible. How are a pair of cahonees related to a yummy hamburger? I’m glad you asked! I’ll tell you!

Testosterone is produced in the testes (duh, I know… have to start somewhere). And although testosterone helps calves grow fast, this is at the cost of a lot of energy. I don ‘t just mean a lot of energy to help them grow (we are totally for growing) but I mean a lot of energy to first develop testes and then produce the testosterone. In a castrated calf, more energy is put towards more marbling fat- the fat that gives meat its flavor and tenderness.

Besides castrating to make a better product, we also castrate for management sake. With testosterone comes aggression (again, duh… I know…) and aggressive cattle make for more work. On a ranch there is ALWAYS something to be done and anything we can do to ease our load is so worth it. Its also make sure that as the calves develop that they don’t get overly zealous in starting the next generation of calves- we don’t want babies pregnant with babies!

We castrate in two ways. Actually “we” only castrate in one way, then those boys do another… The first is using an elastrator. I mentioned this when we talked about tagging. There is a stretchy ring that we stretch around the testes that will eventually cut them off. This works best for young calves that haven’t developed as much. The other method is surgically cutting them- a little more intense (I’m not a wimp, I promise…).

Castrating is stressful for a calf, and stressful times can cause calves to get sick or lose weight. They will bounce back a lot better when they are younger and pick up on that weight gain faster. There have been studies that found that in the end, a calf that is castrated younger will be heavier when it is harvested versus a calf that was castrated at weaning time. Who knew!

Maybe this is more than what you wanted to know, but its a few fun facts about ranch life and what we do to make the best product we can!

PS- We had to document this first time of castrating- talk about getting in there with two hands! Way to go girl!

Days of Branding: Marking the calves

April 24, 2014 by Allison

Part of our branding routine includes, marking our calves. Running our cattle with so many others means we need easy ways to identify which is ours. We use tags, but sometimes tags fall out. And we use brands, but we can only see them when we are up close. So we have ‘nother other (in the words of The Rancher’s Sidekick) way to identify them.

The first is marking the ears. Calves naturally have a really full ear that can be easily seen. This makes for a great place to mark. Some notch out the ears, some do a split. We trim down the ear making for pointy, less full ears.

I have to tell you something… I’m not a fan of marking the ears. They look like a bat or something… But I do like how easy it is to pick up a pair of binoculars and spot those pointy little ears!

The second marking we make is a waddle. A neck waddle. I’m sure that we call it a waddle because is waddles to-and-fro… To make a waddle, we cut a flap of skin back off of the neck. When it heals what we have left is a wiggling bit of skin hanging from the neck. We only waddle the heifers since we will keep them as replacement heifers down the road while we sell the steers. No reason to waddle a calf that won’t need it!

Once again, NOT a fan of the extra wiggling, unattached waddle… but it makes it SUPER easy to identify our cattle!

Its important that these marks are done right. We don’t want too big of a slice taken from the ears or too big of a cut on the neck. We want as little stress on the calves as possible (because they have ALREADY had stress). So we let The Rancher and Rancher Sr. do it for the most part. Its a good job for them…

Days of Branding: Why we brand

April 24, 2014 by Allison

Branding can be a touchy subject when we talk with some people outside the ranching world. It can seem like a harsh or cruel thing to do. So why do we still brand?

The best answer is because it is required by law. A brand is a rancher’s signature, saying which ranch these cattle belong to. Its nice to know which ranch to call when the cows get out, but its more important to know when its time for those cattle to be harvested.

If a cow were to go in without a brand, there is no way to know who that cow belonged to, where it was, what other animals it was running with, and what region it was in. Its important to know this because we want to be VERY sure that there is nothing wrong with the meat. We don’t want to spread disease or sell contaminated beef. Ya, that’s a good reason to brand…

When cattle are sold, cross state lines, or head to be harvested they must be checked over by a brand inspector. This makes a record or a paper trail of where and when the cattle come and go.

But even if we didn’t HAVE to brand, we still would. I don’t know that there is any method out there that is as effective and efficient at marking our cattle as our own. Yes, it is stressful for the calves. It is probably painful and I really feel bad about that. But until someone finds a method of marking that can’t be altered, we gotta stick to branding. Did you know that cattle rustling is still prevalent today? (and in the state of Idaho it is still punishable by hanging!). Too many of the ways to mark cattle can be changed and someone else can claim them.

So we brand our calves. We do it so we can track our cattle so we can put out the best product possible!

Days of Branding: How we do it

April 22, 2014 by Allison

You really should come spend a day branding with us. You could almost pick any weekend and we would be going out. Most days we brand the association cattle. We have 7 ranches worth of cattle together on the range, which means a lot calves! But more about branding with the association another day.

The day that you want to brand with us is when we do our cattle on the Peterson Place. We have about 350 cows to sort through and brand. We start in the morning gathering the cattle from the north. This year we did it in the rain, and what started out as a refreshing little shower turned into a soaker (be glad I didn’t tell you to come until AFTER the rainy year).

We sort the cows out (but we leave a few… the babies are happier with a momma around) and then start to work. Actually this year, we had to wait a while before we could start- blame the rain!

But eventually we got to work. The ropers rope (obviously) and drag the calves to the “fire” where the ground crew is set up. The calves are caught and held with Nord Forks. Don’t know what they are? (neither did I until I started branding with The Rancher). The are a handy tool that is staked into the ground and has a fork like head catch. It slips on the calf’s neck and catches at the base of the head.

The forks make for an easy way to hold the calves while we mark, castrate, vaccinate, tag, and brand the calves. Its a lot to do, so we need some one to run the shots, guys to do the castrating, others to brand and the top dogs mark and tag. Once we hit our groove we just roll on through them. Before we know it, the calves are branded and the dinner bells is a-ringin’!

And then we start over.

We gather in the bunch from the south. Then sort (and no waiting!), rope, drag… you know how it goes!

Days of Branding

April 21, 2014 by Allison

Branding. So much branding. But that’s normal. Every year at this time we pull out the iron sharpen the knives, start the fire and get to work. The ranch trucks have an eternal burnt hair smell. Its stinky and dirty but we love it.

The boys especially love it because that means LOTS of roping. The long days are totally worth it when the work is more like play!

There is a lot going on when we are out there. And you are going to hear all about it! This week I’m going to show you the how’s, why’s, and what’s of branding on the Eliason ranch.

5 Lessons in Cowboy Jargon

April 14, 2014 by Allison

If there was one word to describe April it would be branding. Every weekend (and a couple of days in between) we spend out on the range branding. We have our cows out with other ranches, so naturally we have more than just our herd to brand. I mean it’s not too neighborly to not help our rancher friends! With so many cowboys around, it’s easy to get lost in the cowboy jargon. Usually I would say to just smile and nod your head but out here you can’t always fake it! So here are a 5 words and phrases from the Cowboy Jargon Dictionary (… there is no such thing… I totally just made that up…).

1. A cowboy’s outfit: No this isn’t in reference to his clothing choice of the day. A cowboy does have some… different clothing choices but that’s because they choose function over fashion. But when one cowboy compliments another cowboy’s outfit, he’s talking about his truck and trailer. Can you imagine cowboys sitting around talking about clothes? Me either, but it doesn’t take ANY stretch of imagination to see them talking trucks. Isn’t that written in their DNA?

2. The green broke horse: Let’s just start by saying there is nothing “broken” on a green broke horse. It isn’t “broken” like it doesn’t work. And it’s not really green, unless it was just rolling in the manure… A green broke horse is a horse in training. This means it is inexperienced, or more like unexperienced. Usually these are young horses with high energy and are a little ignorant to what they are doing. Just think of your favorite T-ball team- a lot of energy but most of it is spent playing in the dirt. Eventually they come around to learn the game and pull their weight. And if they don’t, we trade them off the roster.

3. Heading… or heeling… you choose!: Most often you hear these words together in reference to falling in love. You know- head over heels? But I’m not talking about that, although a branding would be a great place to pick up a cowboy! When you are talking heading and healing with cowboys they are talking about roping. There’s two ends on a calf to rope- the head (hence “heading”) or the back feet or heels (yep you got it, “heeling”). I guess you could rope the front feet, but you really don’t have much control even though they are caught.

4. Roping a dogie: (doh-gee) Don’t get caught thinking we are talking about The Rancher’s dog. We are referring to the bovine species, not canine. Put simply, a dogie is a calf without a momma. I’m not sure how dogie ever got to be part of the Cowboy Jargon Dictionary, other than some cowboy long, LONG ago just started calling his motherless calves dogie. These calves can make branding a little tricky when you have several ranches worth of cattle together. Without knowing who the momma cow belongs to, we can only guess who the calf goes with. Nobody wants to be the guy that put the wrong brand on the wrong calf!

5. “Drag ‘em to the fire”: Those are your instructions once you’ve caught your calf. The cowboys drag the calf to the fire, where we have the branding irons set up, hot and ready to leave their mark. A real fire in the middle of a corral with calves, cowboys, and horses sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. It is if you’re not careful! But how else do we get branding irons hot? There are electric irons put there, but there aren’t a lot of electrical outlets amongst the sage brush! But don’t imagine a big bon fire or even an open fire on the ground. Back in the day they would dig a hole in the ground and light up the fire. These days we have a not-so-fancy branding box with a burner (like the burner on a gas stove) to keep the irons hot. Still plenty hot (I recommend watching your step) but not as likely to reach out a burn a cowboy!

I’d say the last bit of cowboy jargon you need to know is the call to “rustle up some grub,” but I’m pretty sure that you know what that means! Now that you have some awesome cowboy vocab, you will be ready to get to work and definitely earn your dinner!

5 March Highlights We Missed

April 4, 2014 by Allison

I can’t believe that its April. March just started, how can it be over?! The saddest part about this month flying by so fast is that there was so much I wanted to share that I didn’t. So here are 5 ranch highlights we missed!

1. We got a new silencer chute! This chute is so quiet, so smooth, and so much safer. No one will get conked on the head or hands pinched. We won’t be bruising shoulders on the calves that we are selling. We won’t choke down the cows and they won’t come crawling through. Ya, we are really excited! Its like Christmas for these cowboys!

2. With spring upon us, we are gearing up for planting. I batted my eyes just right and convinced The Rancher to take us with him to by the new seed. Getting seed is pretty uneventful really, (unless you are a little boy and then its awesome!) but it was a great way to have a day on the town. It was still a ranch day on the town, not like a fun-shopping-at-the-mall day on the town. But I think I would rather hit up CAL Ranch than the mall anyway… So on top of getting the seed, we grabbed a few parts, terrorized a few tractor stores and had a shopping spree at the vet clinic. Still not terribly exciting, but I got a cool picture I wanted to share!

3. We bought a new little mare! The Rancher’s Sidekick has started to call my old horse his. I find myself horseless… So we bought me a new one. She ten and hasn’t hardly been ridden… but she is gentle. I don’t think she even knows how to buck. The Rancher commented that she has no gas, no steering and no manners, but other than that its all good. Slowly we are learning things and I’m excited! We’ll see what summer brings!

4. While we were in Leadore for the bull sale, we spent some time at the ranch that my brother runs. Its fun to go back there because that’s where The Rancher and I met. And where we worked when we were first married. We jumped in the new side-by-side and took a spin around the ranch, guided by my nieces (ages 9 and 7…). And by guided I mean they gave us the low down on EVERYTHING on the ranch. Gotta love cute little ranch girls!

5. Our neighbor needed help branding and of course, being the good neighbors we are, we jumped in to help. There weren’t too many calves to do, so at the end of the day I took a chance to rope! I got on The Rancher’s trusty mare and roped myself a few calves. I’m a real cowgirl now! One of the calves I roped was already branded… but it still counts as a catch, right? I have a whole new appreciation for ropers- its so much harder to do than it looks!

There are still hundreds of pictures and stories to go along that I haven’t shared. Maybe we will have a slow day (ya right!) and we can do a throwback day! Until then, this will have to suffice!

Dusted Out

April 26, 2013 by Allison

We tried to brand on a windy day.. and I don’t recommend it. Ok, lets start over, I really shouldn’t see “we” tried to brand because when I looked out the window… ~~and what did I see? popcorn popping~~ I saw crazy wind and opted out of being on the branding crew. We showed up in time for lunch and stayed just long enough to know I made the right choice to be the rancher’s wife (take care of The Rancher’s kids… and laundry) and not the rancher wife (eating dust with the rest of ’em).

In fact, when I did venture out of the truck I spent most of the time watching from the horse trailer.

It ended up being so dusty that they had to quit early. The cowboys couldn’t catch anything, and when they did it was a hard knowing which brand to put on. Even once they figured that out they had to be careful to make sure it was just the calf that got branded and not the crew! On top of that the cows trashed the fence- its pretty hard to brand when the cattle don’t show up…

There were some blue skies, so long as you weren’t trying to find them through the dust…

Check out The Rancher! He was so covered in dirt! All of the sudden he was tanner and had a thicker goatee… And are those flowers growing from the dirt in his ears?! Maybe not, but we sure went through the Q-tips that night when The Rancher was cleaning up… Actually, you wanna hear something terrible and funny at the same time? Just when The Rancher got home, the power went out because of the CRAZY wind! When he needed a shower most, he couldn’t. But then our fabulous neighbors offered their shower to us. You may be asking why they had power and we didn’t… Well, not only are they fabulous, but also brilliant because they have a generator hooked up to their house. Lesson learned- we need a generator!

April = Branding

April 23, 2013 by Allison

April is SUCH a busy month for us and it mostly surrounds itself around branding. I have learned not to schedule anything on the weekends because The Rancher already has them booked full. Our cows calve out on the desert north of the Salt Lake which means that rather than branding on the ranch we brand on the range. We load up the truck with food, toys for The Rancher’s Boy and coats and blankets enough for all of Mother Nature’s mood swings and then hit the road. Most of the time I am in the thick of it helping however I can, but since The Rancher’s Girl is still so little (5 months!) I get to spend more time on the sidelines this year (that just means more pictures!).