The summer forage is drying out and losing nutritional value, the snow is beginning to fly, and we are starting to feed our cattle. As winter starts, we are all ensuring that our cattle are still getting the feed they need to maintain a good body condition score. In general, a cow will eat about 2%-2.5% of her body weight in dry matter per day. For the majority of Gunnison…
Read MoreShipping Calves
Fall means a lot of things for cattle producers in the area. We’ve already discussed how we choose replacement heifers, but what do we do with the rest of our calves? Most ranchers will be selling their calves into the next stage of the production cycle, but some others are retaining ownership through the entire life cycle, retaining ownership until the calves are a year old, or even pre-conditioning their…
Read MoreThe Benefits of Grazing
Please note that this is republished from my column in the Gunnison Country Times. Fall is in the air – and that holds true for cattle ranchers as well. Fall means gathering cows and bringing them back to the low country to prepare for winter. Most ranchers have had their cattle on Bureau of Land Management or Forest Service land on their authorized allotments. These cattle (or other livestock) have…
Read MorePAUSE – Colorado Initiative 16
Lets talk the Colorado Initative 16 or the PAUSE act. PAUSE is a citizen led ballot initiative that would criminalize accepted animal husbandry practices, assigns an arbitrary lifespan to farm animals, considers fish livestock, and places slaughter restrictions on those same animals. What does that mean for you? A lot – so lets begin to unpack it. Lets start with the lifespan and slaughter requirements. The PAUSE initiative would assign…
Read MoreMore about me – and what is BQA?
A little more about me Hello everyone! Hannah here – and I thought I would give this whole blogging thing a chance. For those of you that don’t know me, I am a cattle rancher who lives in Gunnison County. I work full time off the ranch, as a facility maintenance employee of the Gunnison Fairgrounds. I was born and raised in Gunnison – growing up working my family’s cattle…
Read More