Have cattle disappear every year. Sometimes, we get some back years later. Odd deal, have a little piece of deeded ground about 5 miles above our headquarters ranch here in California. We bought it back in 2003 because it was close to us and a deal was there to be made. Anyhow, the first 4-5 years we owned the ranch we would buy 650-700 6 weight steers late October/early November, run them over and sell them off the grass in late May. The upper end of the country borders the National Park and is extremely rough. We always were out an unacceptable amount of cattle. The final year we ran yearlings, 672 head of cattle were turned out. We had 4 steers die. When we gathered to ship in May, the cowboys brought 626 head to the pens. We were out 42 head (over confirmed deathloss) or a little over 6%. The guys rode and rode, and I hired a helicopter one morning to clean out some pretty nasty canyons etc., that yielded 14 of our missing steers. Eventually, we wrote off the other 28 in our books as MIA and went on with life. The next year (2008 as I recall) we bought about 175 bred cows to go on that ranch and integrated it in to our Fall calving program. They calved, we branded them etc., and the switch to cows fixed our disappearing cattle issue on that ranch other than a cow here or there that fell within the acceptable deathloss. Mid-May of 2010 when we gathered that ranch to wean the calves, for the second year, mixed in with the pairs, were 12 of the steers that had gone MIA 2 years earlier. These now 3 year old, long tailed steers were averaging not quite 1,300lbs and trailing in those cows and calves. Where they had been the 24 months, including gathering the entire ranch to brand twice and ship once prior, is a mystery.
