A Dimensional Operation
#bfrdpwy #aginternship #RightRisk
This week we got the ball rolling fast. The foreman wasted no time giving me responsibilities and getting me started on helping with projects, which I appreciate. Each morning, it is my responsibility to bring the horses in from pasture. Once I do that, we check the yearlings. Since this is a stocker operation, we do not have our full summer herd yet. We have been periodically receiving truckloads of cattle all week and expect to continue doing so until the end of next week. So far, we have received all of our pairs, some of our steers, but none of the heifers yet. I was curious about the thought process behind running pairs as a stocker operation, and the ranch manager explained that some of the high mountain pastures have Larkspur, which they lost 17 steers to last summer season. Since mature cows can handle larkspur a little better, and the calves wont graze it yet. They hope the pairs will allow them to be able to profit from the land still. They lease the pasture to a nearby ranch, who benefits from the deal by freeing up space and labor on their home operation to grow their herd.
Other than that, we have been fencing quite a bit this week. We built two separate jack fences around sites that are used for weddings by the ranch. This aims to keep cows off the ground and reduce the amount of maintenance the sites need. One of the sites is a new location they haven’t offered before, so we had to seed it. We used a bluegrass blend with ryegrass as a cover, so that it would grow fast enough to be ready for the first booking in August. This brings up an interesting point- my host ranch is one of the last commercial cattle operations in the valley that hasn’t become a dude ranch or a guest ranch. While diversification such as wedding venues is still vital to the business plan, they have been able to maintain a working ranch side of things.
We also measured and pounded posts for the new arena we are building. Truckloads of sand came in all week and we expect 30 in total. We used the common combination of drill stem and continuous fence with a top rail for the area panels. Using a hydraulic post pounder on the skid made easy work of laying out the framework. I have built this sort of paneling before, so the foreman asked me for some pointers on how to go about it. I was happy to share my knowledge about the deal.
Overall, everyone has been very welcoming and nice. I feel great about choosing this internship and working with this operation; I look forward to the rest of the summer!
Submitted by: Isabella Schultz
Edits by: GrowinG Internship Team
