Last American Cowboy TV Show Questions

[choward2955jd]

Do those ranches you guess use bulls with their cows?
If so how many bulls would the Galt Ranch have to use for their 3000 cows?
It seems like if they use bulls with their cows it would be hard to get all those cows to calve in 3months of each other.
How do they keep track of what cows are going a good job rasing claves and which ones are not?
How do thay when they brand the calves know what calf goes on what cow?
How many rolls of hay would you think the Galt Ranch would feed during the winter? 10,000 + or -
The way the stucky ranch was stacking hay in the piles seems like more work than just rolling hay.

I would love to see those folks in action when branding cattle I have never seen that before. We use eartages for our cattle.

 

[oscar p]

When does the show aire?

 

[cowboy43]

123 bulls
14053 rolls of 1000 lb bales of hay
The cows and calves are numbered and they are matched up when the calves are nurseing.
When calves are sold calf # and cow# are matched to determine how cow did.

 

[choward2955jd]

How do you know this?

 

[Beef Man]

Yes, Galts cows are all bullbred . Have sold them bulls in the past. A ranch this size usually cull the dry's and the lumps and bumps and sometimes culls the obvious big belly fat cows in the fall. I would seriously doubdt that they mess around with tags. By the way all of the Galts are great guys to do business with as we have delivered bulls to them site unsseen and have had good luck. I imagine that the calves that we saw them delivering were sold just to Tom Lane as he buys a lot of cattle in that area and has for many years. As far as the Stuckeys and their hay operation that is the absolute cheapest way to put up quality hay and do it fast. Theyalso have a excelent way of feeding their hay.

 

[Beef Man]

We don't worry about which calf belongs to the cows at branding as they mother up well after the job is done. Just turn them back with the cows and they sort it allout. I also imagine that Bill use's 150-175 bulls and mother nature will take care that they won't calve out much over 1 month to 6weeks.

 

[I luv herfrds]

Oscar they have been rerunning the show on the green channel #286 Direct satelite.

 

[Oldtimer]

We don't worry about which calf belongs to the cows at branding as they mother up well after the job is done. Just turn them back with the cows and they sort it allout. I also imagine that Bill use's 150-175 bulls and mother nature will take care that they won't calve out much over 1 month to 6weeks.

Yep around here most ranchs of that size turn out 1 bull for every 15-25 head of cows-- depending on age of bulls and how big of pasture...And culling is done mostly at preg time because of opens, lates, lumps, teeth, obvious cows that lost calves, obvious defects, age, etc... Most pull/gather their bulls so they only have a 60 day (or lately with high lightweight calf prices again) 90 day calving period...

I do have a neighbor or two that lot calve 300-1000 head- that do tag each calf when born- and then haul the pairs after a few days out of the river bottom lot- to the spring pasture... More labor intensive-but fits their farming calendar better too....

 

[Idaman]

In answer to some of the questions here about the practices of large ranches.

They almost all bull breed. The rule of thumb for cow-bull ratios is 20 cows per bull. I have seen it as low as 12 but almost never higher than 25. That variation is determined by size and ruggedness of the breeding pastures.

Most of the large ranches today were put together from smaller ranches sometime in the past. Quite often they operate them that way with several smaller units run independently by the manager of each unit. They help one another at branding, shipping and haying. Usually no one tries to handle groups of more than 500. 200 seems to be a handy number branding or working. They may work more in a day than that but they have the smaller bunches coming and going.

After separation at branding etc. almost always they are paired up before they are returned to their pastures. If they are tagged then that is used or if not they are paired off. Cowboys on horses hold the unpaired bunch against a fence or some holding place and then as pairs are spotted they are eased out of the bunch and pushed a little distance from the original group. This is very time consuming but almost a necessity on some ranges. Even moving from one pasture to the next we "pair em up."

This is where the quality of the cowboys comes in. There are lots of cowboys out there that can ride and rope but the best can remember nearly each individual in a fairly large herd. All black is very tough but a few can do amazing things from memory.

Marketing is also varied. Satellite, private treaty, local sale barn, and retained ownership are all used. Most today, if they don't retain, want to sell by auction as order buyers never come out to the country to try to buy your cattle for more.

The unsound and cows not bringing in a calf are culled first. Opens next and cows with poorer calves last. Many ranches at weaning cut the poorer calves out from the rest and then turn those back out with the bawling cows to let them find their mothers. These pairs will usually drift away from the weaning scene and then are easily removed for final determination.

 

[GymTruckLaundry]

Of the three ranches on that show i like the Hughes family the best. That guy works his behind off, you actually see him get mad but he gets over it right away. He has that pretty wife who trys her best and those two cute kids, takin care of i think it's 400 pairs...that dude's livin the dream