Office Work

#bfrdpwy #aginternship #RightRisk

This week marks the halfway point of the internship, assuming the full ten weeks will be able to be completed. It seems like just yesterday I was arriving at the ranch and being educated on the tasks I will be responsible for on a daily basis. As I review my experience in more depth though, I realize that I have already gained a large amount of useful experience and insight into both the ranching and large animal medicine field. Along with this, I have created meaningful connections with people working on the ranch and in the surrounding areas of Wilson, Wyoming. I have developed close friendships with the other interns on the ranch and have cultivated networks with people that could help me in my future career path! Therefore, as I recognize these important achievements this far, I am thrilled to see what the second half of the internship will bring.

This week was much like the previous in the sense of tasks being completed and knowledge being explored. Unfortunately, I am currently dealing with a bit of an injury (running-related), and have been put on a bit of a “lighter” workload. Although, this has not stopped me from gaining a surplus of knowledge and experience and, with the help of my boss at the ranch, I am making the most of the activities I can still participate in until I am healed up. While this may include a little more office work than I had planned on, and less roping/riding experience, I still feel as though there is so much to be learned in this regard as well.
One of the important events to note from this week was the Ranching for Profit conference I attended with the other interns. For this conference, we traveled to Pinedale, Wyoming to meet with the Ranching for Profit team and learn more about the ranching and agricultural field, specifically as it related to overall success and profit. This was very informative and inspiring to attend. I feel as though I gained a lot of information in regards to successful and profitable ranching which is a future goal of mine.

As I said previously, this week I was completing more office work than usual, but the work itself was surprisingly informative and even answered some of my previous questions. In the office, I was responsible for updating records for the cattle doctoring, pasture movements, and minerals. By having the opportunity to input these records, I was also able to understand the cattle pasture movements much better. I could see the patterns that are typically followed and the amount of days the steers typically spent in a specific pasture. Additionally, by inputting the doctoring records, I was able to correlate the type of injury/illness with the corresponding medicinal treatments.
One of the major concepts from this week that I want to learn more about is in regards to starting up a successful ranch. After attending the Ranching for Profit conference, I was inspired to explore ranching on a deeper level. It has always been a goal of mine to own a ranch at some point, but I really had not put much thought into it, as I have several other priorities that need to be taken care of first. Even after the conference, I had so many questions regarding the ways in which a successful ranch could be started from scratch. I would not be inheriting any ranch and would be starting from little to nothing, but believe with the proper insight and knowledge, it would be possible.

The office work also created a few interesting points for me as I gained a better understanding of the aspects of cattle records that are kept. I am mostly curious about the purpose of the records. For example, I want to know where the records go, like are they used for the ranch’s own knowledge or for the cattle buyers, or for other reasons. Additionally, I would be interested to learn more about the overall significance of some of the
data being inputted. For instance, one of the data sets that is automatically calculated by the program is the number of “steer days” on a pasture. I want to learn the significance of this term and how it is calculated.
I believe that much of the experience I gained this week will be extremely helpful in the future with not only my career goals, but also my personal life goals. This week I gained quite a bit of new experience with the records being kept for the cattle, especially the pasture movements and the treatments. This information could be useful to base future considerations regarding the important details to note when working with cattle. Being aware of this information also allows me to better understand successful ways of moving cattle. For example, I was able to see the amount of days a herd of cattle are typically kept in a specifically sized pasture to meet their nutrition standards.

Aside from the experience gained that could improve my future career goals, attending the Ranching for Profit conference this week also significantly improved the potential success of my personal goals. I am hoping to use the experience I gained from the brief conference to further explore the important aspects of a successful ranch. While I still have a large amount of information to learn regarding ranching, I think that the conference allowed me to start to think about how I could achieve the goal of owning and operating my own ranch in the future.

Submitted by: Sydney Thorvaldson
Edits by: GrowinG Internship Team