A Week on the West Ranch

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If I had to put a name on this week, I would’ve called it the West Ranch week. This week, we spent three days of our six-day work week at the West Ranch. The West Ranch is the ranch my hosts own in Niobrara county. Even though the West Ranch and the Main Ranch are only about an hour apart, the climate changes so much between the two ranches.

Starting off the week Michael and I stacked bales. He used the hay trailer to bring the bales to the hay yard. Once the bales were in the hay yard, I used the skid loader to stack the bales. They don’t stack the bales the same way we do at home. I asked Michael why they don’t and it is because of the snowfall. The snow is not able to fall through the bales if they are stacked with two rows right next to each other and the third one on top. They only stack one row, leave about a two foot gap in-between, and stack another row. Driving the skid loader was definitely a learning curve for me. Before coming to the ranch I have only driven a skid loader two other times, but our skid loader at home is different than this one. Mike trusted me with the skid loader because it is just the same as driving the zero turn lawn mower. It took some getting used to, but in the end I got it figured out and was stacking the bales in no time.

Tuesday morning the old moms were out of their pasture yet again. Morganne and I tried to put back what we could, but the terrain in the pasture they were out in was hard to navigate with a side-by-side. We had to end up calling Michael to come out with the four wheeler and his dog, Dallas. They were able to get to places we couldn’t. After getting the old moms settled back into their pasture, we had to treat bull number 1. He had some bad foot rot from all of the moisture we have gotten. After treating number 1, Mic

hael, Morganne, Dallas, and I headed over to the West Ranch to pick up the bulls from the heifers. They took out the bulls last Thursday and we picked them up on Tuesday to bring back to the ranch. Number 21 was put out with the first calf heifers but number 10 was sent back to the bull breeder because he has some messed up feet.

Wednesday, Morganne and I were sent over to the West Ranch to check the heifers, spay heifers, and two groups of steers. We had to put seven steers back in the pasture after they had escaped. Thursday was another full back spent at the West Ranch. We put in one h-brace that needed to be replaced, dropped off tire tanks for the new water tanks they are putting in the pastures, did mineral for the groups over there, and repositioned the load out chute.

Friday and Saturday ended up being a bit slower because of the heat. Friday afternoon Morganne, Miranda, and I picked up rocks out of the feedlot pens. Saturday, Michael and I ran the trash into town since they don’t have a disposal service around. And on Saturday afternoon my task was to clean out the chute. It took me about three hours to clean out but in the end it looked amazing and I was proud of my work. This week was a bit slower but I’m excited to see what the next four week hold.

 

 

Submitted by: Tamryn Klein
Edits by: GrowinG Internship Team