For a family who hasn’t branded cattle on their own ranch in nearly 2 years this was a welcome sight! Some of our good friends needed a few head branded and summered so we said bring them on up!
Here are some highlights from that fun day!
Getting Ready for the Day
We are ready! Irons are hot boys!
First Calf Down
Father and Sons crew branding
Hey guys! What are we doing?!
Working the mama’s! My kids loved this!
Pushing them out to pasture!
Have an amazing Calving and Branding Season!
As with any mountain cattle operation, it seems we are always looking for the last few who like to hide out in the brush. After a lot of coaxing with hay, grain and salt, we finally got this last bunch down to the corrals! Back in South Dakota this was never a real problem as we could see pretty much all of the cattle as we road through the pastures, but here that is a different story.
Out of all the yearlings we hosted over the spring and summer we had one little heifer who was a sneaker! We have been working to get her and these other cattle (owned by a couple different neighbors) into the corrals since the beginning of November! This bunch of cattle is the bunch that continued to be so elusive that even our top horse and rider combinations couldn’t keep up with them through the trees and brush. Today was the day! 12 inches of fresh snow (for a total on the ground of around 18-20 inches!) and a good cold blast this morning brought them the rest of the way down the mountain.
Thank goodness for the snowmobile to help us get these critters into the corrals! The side-by-sides are not much help in this deep of snow.
The Rancher headed out to clear out the road and grab a bale for these gals to help keep them into the corrals until we can get them to their rightful owners!
Happy New Year – from The Stragglers!