We had to go to the farm in Waurika again last weekend to ship the last of the cattle we had down there. Our farm is on the southern end of the state, less than twenty miles from the Texas line. Our ranch in Osage County, is on the northern end of the state, about thirteen miles from the Kansas line. It’s about a four hour drive from our ranch to the farm, so when we go to the farm, we try to get as much done as possible.

The reason we call it “the farm” is that it is primarily a farming operation. We plant over 3,500 acres of wheat, then use it to graze cattle in the winter and spring. In the warmer climate of southern Oklahoma, the wheat will grow almost all winter long, providing an excellent source of pasture for grazing and fattening cattle.

Grazing cattle on wheat during the winter is common practice for many wheat farmers in this area, but most of them will pull the cattle off in February or March, then go ahead and let the wheat grow so they can harvest a crop. Our wheat farming operation is strictly for grazing cattle. In the spring, when the wheat really starts growing, we just add more cattle. In the fall, you can stock one steer per acre depending on the size of the cattle; that can increase to one-and-a-half to two steers per acre in the spring.

Steers can gain 2.5 to 3 pounds a day on good wheat pasture.

In an earlier post, I’d explained raising calves as part of the cow-calf operation. The farm, on the other hand, is used primarily as a yearling grazing operation, which is the next stage of the cattle cycle. Yearling or “stocker” operations will take calves that have been weaned from their mamas, then grow them. This is the stage where the calf will go from the 400/500 pound range to 700/800 pounds. This is a large part of the cattle business, and there are many ranchers and farmers that specialize in just this aspect. There are also ranchers and farmers like us that do both cow/calf and yearling operations.

We do yearlings both on the farm and on our home ranch. We use our own calves from our cow/calf operation and we will also buy calves from other ranchers. You can buy cattle at sale barns, through video auctions, internet auctions, order buyers or directly from other ranchers. Most of the calves are from spring cows and are weaned in the fall, so we buy and receive them in the fall. The hardest part of a yearling operation is receiving them—getting the calves in and keeping them healthy.

When they first arrive, we process them. This means we brand, worm and vaccinate them. Then they are kept in traps (smaller pastures) where they are trained to come to a feed truck and monitored every day to make sure they don’t get sick. (One of the many skills you need as a cowboy is the ability to identify sick cattle; the earlier you can identify and doctor one, the better it is for them.) Any sick cattle are gathered to the pens and doctored. If there are just a couple of sick animals, they’re roped and doctored (which just means given a shot of antibiotics) right on the spot. After a week or two, when the cattle have begun coming to a feed truck, they are moved to larger pastures. But they will still need to be monitored daily for a month or more to make sure they stay well.

The great part about a wheat-grazing operation is that the wheat is ready to graze in late November or early December. So as soon as the cattle are straightened up and ready to go, there is pasture ready for them. The hard part about a wheat grazing operation is stocking it right so that you don’t run out of pasture or let the wheat get too big. It’s a balancing act to keep the right number of cattle on the wheat. The hard part about the yearlings we run on our main ranch is that they have to be kept and fed through the winter until the grass starts growing in April. The good part is that they are usually sold in July or August, which is typically a good time to market cattle.

Personally, I like having the benefit of running yearlings on both wheat and grass. It provides a little financial diversity. The cattle on wheat will be sold from March through May, so it gives you come cash flow in the spring of the year when you can use it after a long winter of expenses. It also spreads out your marketing window to help weather any market blips that might otherwise hurt you.

The hardest part about running cattle for both types of operations is getting enough cattle in the fall and being able to afford buying the cattle. We will typically buy around ten thousand calves in the fall, and in today’s market that’s not cheap. As is the case with most ranchers, all of our equity is tied up in land, so we don’t have cash sitting in the bank at any given time. Fortunately, we have a good banker we have worked with for over twenty years. One of the first lessons my father taught me is that you need to have a good, longterm relationship with a lender who understands agriculture. Ranching is a capital-intensive business, and one of the keys to being able to make it in the long run is to have good banking relationships.

Most larger yearling operations, will borrow the money needed to buy their cattle. This introduces an element of risk. When you borrow money to buy cattle that you’re going to sell within 4 to 8 months, you take a risk that if the market goes down during that time, you can not only not make money, which is bad enough, but you could also lose money, which is much worse. The other side is that if the market goes up during that time, you can make really good money. The key, like any business, is that you have to be in it for the long haul. There will always be ups and downs, but if you’re in it for the long term, they will hopefully even themselves out.

Saturday was a good day. This year has been an up year in the market, which makes shipping much more fun. (We’ve had our share of years where shipping wasn’t as much fun.)

We shipped 1,564 steers Saturday.

 
We gathered them from two pastures. In this one, there were about 900 steers.

 
 
I know I’ve said it before, but early morning gatherings are the best.

 
 
One thing about shipping is that after you line up the buyer and the trucks, there is no calling it off. So even though it was supposed to rain that morning, we didn’t let it stop us.

 
 
See, here comes some more trucks. There’s no putting it off until tomorrow.

 
 
It wasn’t a hard rain, so it was actually kind of nice. It kept the morning cool and made it easier on the cattle. We had our usual crew of kids (Our younger daughter had a soccer game, so she got a pass for the day.)

 
 
We also had some day workers. A little extra help is always nice.

 
 Man, that pink jacket stands out. But she was quick to point out that “It took eight of them to watch the other side, but just me and my pink jacket to watch this side.” Here, we’re gathering them from a 640 acre pasture into a smaller trap that leads to the pens.

 
 
Once they’re in the trap, it gets a little easier.

 
 
They just follow the feed truck on to the pens.

 
 
Except this time, he got a little too far in front of us and because there were so many cattle, the front part made it to the pens and turned around before we could get the back part up there. Here, Miss Pink Jacket, Josh, and cowboy Todd are stopping them from running off.

 
 
We got them turned around now, back towards the pens.

 
 
Once in the pens, I usually weigh and Pa-Pa handles the loading of the scales, but I left him some of our very top hands.

 
 
After a while, some of them abandoned him—they wanted to go in the house and dry off. But these two stuck it out.

 
 
Actually, I told them they had to stay and help.

 
 
It doesn’t look like it bothered them much.

 
 
Todd, our cowboy at the farm, counted them off.

 
 
Tim helped Allen (the buyer rep) go through the cattle after we weighed them.

 
 
Oh, and while he usually stays on the ranch, we brought Josh to the farm on this trip. He and Colt loaded trucks after Tim and Allen had gone through them.

 
 
On they go.

 
 
We were finished by 11:00 AM. It was like a well-oiled machine…or trailer gate.

What kind of country kids have they been, anyway?

Anyway, they’re officially obsessed now. They get up in the morning and race to the pond to see who can catch the first fish of the day.

 
 
 
Josh took them fishing at our pond a few days ago. This is part of what has ignited the fire.

On another note, I almost entitled this post “Josh in Shorts” since Josh is…well, wearing shorts.

Cowboys in shorts: Not exactly a sight one sees every day.

 
 
 
Oh, were my boys in heaven.

 
 
 
Josh gave the boys some pointers about how to cast and how to reel it in.

 
 
 
And how to give the line a little yank when you first feel that nibble.

 
 
 
Kitten Kitten was very interested in this new fishing business.

For obvious reasons.

 
 
 
My older daughter eventually joined the fun that evening.

At least she tried to.

 
 
 
Have you seen Animal House? The part where Flounder goes up to the poker players at the rush party?

 
 
 
“Hi, guys! You guys playing cards?”

 
 
 
“Guess they didn’t hear me.”

 
 
 
He caught one!

Then he threw it back.

Eventually, the girls joined in and before the evening was over, they’d all caught one.

And they’d all thrown them back.

 
 
 
Much to Kitten Kitten’s chagrin.

 
 
Oh, what a beautiful day!

 
 
I’ve got a beautiful feeling…

 
 
That calf is going to stay.

(Photos snapped by Marlboro Man from atop his trusty steed.)

And finally, from my then three-year-old boy who’s now nine, and who will be eighteen tomorrow:

Have a beautiful day, everyone!

Love,
PW

1. Unpacked.
2. Completely rearranged the furniture.
3. Gave myself a hernia.
4. Cleaned out my desk and found three important things that are no longer important because back when they were important, I couldn’t find them.
5. Placed tomato cages onto some tomatoes I planted a couple of weeks ago.
6. Cleaned out Charlie’s ears.
7. Donated the contents of his ears to science.
8. Washed my hands.
9. Made pork chops.
10. Made pico de gallo.
11. Made cookies.
12. Didn’t exercise.

Today I’m cleaning out the mud room and I’m so very afraid. Hold me.

And while we’re on the subject, I wanted to tell you a quick story.

 
On Sunday, I appeared on QVC to feature my new cookbook. It’s the fifth or sixth time I’ve been on QVC over the past three years, and it’s something I really enjoy doing. QVC is like a planet unto itself, probably the most well-oiled machine I’ve ever seen next to my household. Just kidding on that last part. The people at QVC are upbeat and positive, the place is immaculate, the producers are calm and organized, and David Venable, the host of the show on which I appear, is someone I’ve really grown to like.

When I go to QVC, I feel like a complete dodo bird. Last time I was there, I ran into a stairway. You can read about it here:

Ree Runs Into a Stairway

This time, I showed up to the studio all dressed and ready about 11:00, and my segment, it turned out, wasn’t until 1:15. So I spent that time making sure all the food was in order and my forehead wasn’t overly reflective. Then I placed an extremely large Velcro roller on top of my head, rolling up a strategic section of my hair so as to give my hair a little height and offset my jowls for my segment. Then I set about figuring out what I was going to wear. I also watched QVC in real time on the TV in the green room, trying not be sucked in by the offerings. Never in my life have I wanted a facial steamer or set of sparkly stacking rings so much.

Around 11:45, the producer came in to let me know that they would need me to come out on the set and do a tease at noon, which just means I go out and say hi and they introduce me and say I’ll be on the show later in the day. I said, “Okay, great,” then sat back down and resumed reading The Godfather.

If you have not read The Godfather—if you’ve only seen the movie—please add it to your summer reading list. I’m going to write about it on PW Entertainment soon.

Oh, that reminds me! I need to plant those two rose bushes near our rock wall today.

And I can’t forget to put the roast in the oven!

Wait. What was I talking about?

Oh, yeah. QVC. So just before noon, I walk toward the set and wait outside the door for them to call me because I don’t want to be in anyone’s way. Then I hear in my earpiece, “We need you now, Ree!”

Thirty seconds early. I think. They’re really on the ball today!

I swing open the doors and begin walking on set. The producer, standing in the wings, looks at me as I walk past and says “You have a roller!”

“Okay!” I answered nervously and took another step or two toward the cameras. I didn’t really know what he meant. I thought maybe he was saying that I was going to be featuring a rolling kitchen cart like the one they’d featured earlier in the show. Never mind that this made absolutely no sense.

“You have a roller!” he repeated, only a little louder this time. Like when people repeat something to a person who doesn’t speak their language, and they think raising the volume will help.

“Okay,” I answered again. Then I started thinking he meant a lint roller. I guess I’ll be featuring a lint roller on my segment along with my cookbook? Never mind that made even less sense than the rolling kitchen cart.

I took another step toward the set. My tease was seven seconds away, and I didn’t want to be late.

“YOU HAVE A ROLLER IN YOUR HAIR.” The urgency in the producer’s voice was undeniable.

It all suddenly became clear to me. The Velcro roller, which happened to be the size of a medium-sized propane tank, was still proudly and violently perched on top of my head, a good chunk of my hair rolled up in it. I felt like a crazy lady who’d left the beauty shop a little early and who’d accidentally worn her bra over her shirt that day. I was two steps away from being in the camera’s frame, so I froze, ripped the roller out of my hair, plopped it in the producer’s outstretched hand, and breezed right up to David Venable, who graciously welcomed me to the show and most likely wondered why the top of my head was frizzed out and hectic.

On my way to the airport later that afternoon, Marlboro Man texted me from home. Our conversation went something like this:

How did it go?

Great! I almost walked on the set with a roller on top of my head.

I don’t understand.

Neither do I.

But here’s the good news: I didn’t run into the stairway when I left the building!

So when you think about it, I’m actually making progress.

Note from Pioneer Woman: The above photo has nothing to do with this post. I just wanted to post it.

After six weeks of off/on travel, I’m finally home to stay and probably won’t shower for a week. (Wait…what?) More regular posting will resume now that I’m permanently unpacked…but meanwhile, my beloved Marlboro Man has been picking up the slack for me, writing posts about agriculture. If you’re not the least bit interested in reading about the cattle market, cow-calf operations, bulls, land management, burning, and artificial insemination, I do apologize.

However, if these topics pique your interest, here is the full archive of the posts he’s written so far:

Cattle & Agriculture Posts by Marlboro Man

As for today’s post, Marlboro Man answers many of your questions relating to last week’s post about Cow-Calf Operations…and about ranching in general. Thank you all for giving him an opportunity to talk about his favorite subject next to football.

Q. If you keep heifers back as replacements, do you need keep them in a different pasture, with a different bull, for genetic diversity? Or do you AI the heifers and keep them in a pasture without a bull?

A. We don’t AI (artificially inseminate.) All of the heifers that are being bred for the first time will be kept in pastures by themselves. The bulls used on heifers their first time are usually younger, low birth-weight bulls. We use younger bulls because they weigh less and it’s easier on the heifers. “Low birth-weight” means the bulls are expected to sire calves with a lower birth weight; this is preferable for heifers being bred for for the first time. It makes the calving easier.

 
 
Q. Is AI used in the cattle industry as well? If it is, what are the pros/cons of AI use?

The main advantage of AI is that it allows you to dictate specific genetics. The biggest negative is the time and management required to synchronize the heat cycle of the cattle being bred—then manually inseminate each animal. On a commercial operation (“commercial” just means we are raising cattle for the production of beef, versus registered operations that are trying to produce superior genetics) it is more cost-effective to let the bull do his work. He can easily identify which cows are in heat.

 
 
Q. Aside from sheer number of cows, have you considered artificial insemination to reduce the number of empty cows?

A. Trying to manage the heat cycle of 1,000 cows spread out over 12 pastures would make AI impossible for us.

 
 
Q. How do you keep track of which animal is used for what purpose? Do you have several herds of cattle grazing on separate parcels?

A. Our ranch is fenced and cross-fenced into many different pastures. Part of our job is to stock the pastures at a manageable rate and to keep track of what is grazed in each pasture. Usually in the fall and spring, we’ll shape (gather to the pens and sort, or sort in the corner of a pasture on horseback) our cows and yearlings to put like cattle with like cattle. Incidentally, we’ll be doing this in the coming weeks. I will try to do a post with photos about this process)

 
 
Q. How in the world do you keep track of all your cattle, down to which one was bred and how old this one is and when it’s time for that one to go…and tell them apart?

A. We keep the cattle separated by pasture. Most of the different types of animals we run are easy to differentiate. Fall cows have babies in the winter and spring cows don’t. Steers and heifers are easily determined by their sexual identifiers. Steers and heifers aren’t nearly as big as cows, or as small as calves. The only difficult thing to immediately identify is a cow’s age, but they aren’t generally separated by age except to keep the first and second calf heifers separate. (This is so that you can breed them with lower birth-weight bulls, and so that you can keep a closer eye on them during calving season.)

 
 
Q. How do you guard your cattle against coyotes?

A. We take care of some of them ourselves. Also, our state trappers will come assist us with decreasing the numbers. Coyotes are part of the wildlife in our area, so it isn’t as much about totally eliminating them (which is impossible to do) as keeping their numbers under control.

 
 
Q. How much do the kiddos contribute?

A. Our kids are now vital to the operation. They know how to do the work and they are getting to be pretty good at it. This doesn’t just happen overnight. Tim and I have spent lots of time working with them. In the earlier years, taking them with us was more work than it was helpful, but that is what you have to do if you want them to learn. There were many mornings when I would rather have slept until 5:00 am instead of getting up at 4:30 to saddle those four extra horses. But now I’m so glad I did it.

 
 
Q. Two questions from a non-cow person: How would a cow get injured by an oil pump jack? And hypothetical — how do you think you would handle it if one of your kids said he/she hated the outdoor ranch life and didn’t want to help with any of the cow/horse type chores?

A cow will sometimes rub on the panels around a pump and knock them down or loose, then it will stick its head in there and get injured. It doesn’t happen very often.

As far as the kids go, it wouldn’t bother me at all if they said ranch life wasn’t for them. When I was growing up, I actually didn’t like it all that much. It was a lot of work and I would have much rather sat at home and watched cartoons on Saturday morning. Thankfully, that wasn’t an option. I want my kids to know how to be good cattlemen and to know how to do the jobs of the ranch. But more importantly, I want them to learn how to work. If they learn how to work, then they can accomplish anything they want.

 
Q. I’m assuming part of producing the best calves is managing the land usage – how much is grazed over when, and when/how long that land is rested or turned to another use before being used for the cow/calf portion of the operation again?

A. You are correct. The key to any ranching operation is managing your land. It is your most important responsibility. How you stock your pastures and what you stock them with is all part of that process. We don’t do any rotational grazing, but we do alternate what we run in certain pastures through the years. You might run cows in a pasture for two years then go to horses for two and then do yearlings for a couple. They all graze land differently.

 
 
Q. What pasture management practices do you all use? Good grass has got to be good for fat and happy cows, so how do you insure that your pastures remain lush and fruitful? Burn? Fertilize? Weed control?

A. We burn and weed spray. Usually we will burn whatever is big enough to need it, then we try to weed-spray (using an aerial sprayer) half the ranch each year. We do not fertilize, as you don’t see much benefit from it on the native grasses in this area.

 
 
Q. Do you save some of these bulls for your own meat? Or do you have to purchase meat in the stores?

A. We do both. I am very comfortable with either option. I have no doubts about how the cattle that enter the general food chain are handled or treated. I only buy choice or better steaks in the grocery store, so they are usually the equivalent of what we raise at home. I do like home raised hamburger better but that is usually because the fat content is a little higher, so most people probably wouldn’t like that.

If you want to purchase a steer outside of the usual food chain, one way to do it is to go to a local 4-H show. You don’t have to buy the grand champion, just select one of the middle-of-the-road steers. This is not only an excellent way to buy a good steer that has been fed and raised with care, but also to support your local youth who are learning about agriculture,.

 
 
Q. I am curious how you pick the cows that you feed to your family. Do you finish them on grain or are they strictly grassfed?

A. We usually only fatten one or two at a time for our own use and we will do it on a grain ration. Personally I like the flavor of grain fed beef better than grass-fed. Cattle only need to be fed a grain ration for about 90 days to be considered grain-fed.

 
 
Q. I’d be curious to know what the early indicators are that one cow is better than another for using as a breeding cow?

A. We do it based on confirmation and size.

 
 
Q. Did you major in business at university? Or agriculture? Or…?

A. Business. When I first went to college, I wasn’t coming back. It took a few years for me to miss the ranch.

 
 
Q. Can you address the subject of twin calves?

A. We will leave them on the cow if she accepts them and both are doing well. You need to watch them closely and if one of the calves is struggling, you need to bottle feed it or try to get another cow to take the calf. (Unfortunately you always have a small number of cows that have recently lost a calf.)

 
 
Q. Please write about succession planning and passing the ranch to the next generation. Your family has obviously been very successful at this.

A. I’ve thought about doing a post about how a multi-generational ranch works. I’ll put that on my to-do list. The cliff notes version goes like this: You need a lot of hard work, a good education, and a good family.

But most importantly, you’ll need a good measure of faith in God. As anyone in agriculture can tell you, so much is out of our hands.

 
 
Q. Are the cow/calves more profitable than growing a crop like corn or something else?

A. Row crops are much more profitable than cattle. However, this area (the Flint Hills) is too rocky, which is why most of it was never plowed. But that means it still has its native grasses, which are excellent for grazing cattle.

 
 
Q. How much water do cattle drink – and how do you supply it to them, other than ponds.

A. All of our water comes from ponds or creek. We get plenty of rain to make ponds work in our area. As you get further west and the rainfall decreases, people will use some sort of well water, usually with a windmill.

 
 
Q. How difficult is weaning? I had a great grandma on a farm in Leavenworth, Kansas and can remember going to sleep some nights to the sound of baby calves. I was told they were being weaned and were crying out for their moms.

A. Naturally, calves are going to bawl the first couple of days they’re separated from their mamas, but by the time we wean the calves, they need to come off. A big calf will drink so much milk per day that it can be hard on the cow. We always joke that some of the cows seem ready to go to the pens. It’s like they are saying “Alrighty, he/she is all yours, I’m ready for a break.”

 
 
Q. Is a steer the primary kind of beef that people eat? Do you sell the calves for veal?

A. Steers and heifers are the primary types. We do not do any veal. I personally don’t know anyone who does veal.

 
 
Q. What other courses do you recommend to anyone to take while in college if they want to be a farmer or rancher?

A. You need basic Ag Classes but you also need business, finance, marketing—and in today’s climate, probably communications.

 
 
Q. I was curious how your family got started ranching and how you work the business with your brother. Does he live on your ranch too, and do you share all the duties equally?

A. My brother and I have separate operations, but we work very closely together. He has his ranch that he’s responsible for and I have mine, but we help each other and work together a lot. One of the advantages of having a father and brother in the same business is having a built-in consulting team. Together, we make better decisions.

 
 
Q. What is the average time you keep a cow for breeding, and also the steers? AND, do the breeding cows get sold for market or sent somewhere else?

A. Usually you will breed a heifer at 1 to 1.5 years of age. Cows are kept for their full breeding life and then they are sold, usually to a packer that specializes in older animals.

 
 
Q. If gestation is 9 months and calves are weaned at 8 months, what’s happening for the other 7 months before they go to market (since things were laid out as a 2 year/24 month operation). Is it purely “extra” time for the calves to increase in size? I’m curious because I wonder whether it would ever be possible to decrease the cycle or condense the overlap in the event of a missed breeding slot. Or are the cattle always going to be purchased October-December?

A. The cycle has been compressed as much as possible. After calves are weaned, they are sold to the next phase, which is a yearling operation. I’ll cover this later, but basically they are run on grass or wheat and grown from the 400-500 pounds to 700-800 pounds. Then they are sold to a feedyard or similar operation.

 
 
Q. Speaking of, is purchase time frame something that the ranchers or the purchasers set? Is there a reason you couldn’t have a similar cycle of spring-calves with the purchases happening in June/July a year later?

A. The rancher sets the time to sell his calves. The weaning season is determined by the growing season of the grass on the ranch the cattle come from. You want the primary growing time of the calf to coincide with the time when the grass has the highest and best protein content.

 
 
Q. Is part of the reason you prefer fall-calving that you live at a latitude/climate that will allow very young calves to live in the winter? Is that something that a rancher further north would need to consider in their cost-benefit analysis?

A. Yes. The farther north you get, the harder it is on the calves in the winter. If you’re calving when a blizzard hits, it’s not good for anyone. Also in areas where your grass is dormant in the winter, fall cattle require much more feed to get them through the winter. So southern climates are more conducive to fall cows.

 
 
Q. Here’s a question not quite related…have you been surprised by the fame and fortune this blog has brought?

A. Everything about the blog has been a surprise. As far as fame and fortune, I always tell people that it’s impossible to be famous in Pawhuska. Everyone here knows everyone else and to most of them I’m still just the guy they went to high school with or my father’s son or my grandmother’s grandson. And Ree is my wife or the kids’ mother. And the cows and horses really don’t care. The only one who has really been affected by all the change is Charlie. His ego is getting a little out of control.

 
 
Q. It’s very clear that you take excellent care of your animals, but I’m curious if it’s good for the cows to be bred back to back like that? How many years of breeding does each cow do? Seems like it must be tough on them to be pregnant and nursing all the time??

A. As long as we do a good job of taking care of them while they’re pregnant and nursing, they do fine. It really comes down to making sure they have proper nutrition and care so they can stay healthy and happy.

 
 
Q. Can you tell a little more what causes some of the baby calves to die?

A. There are lots of ways for calves to die. Sickness, problems with birthing, and coyotes are the primary problems we have. That’s why they take constant management and monitoring.

 
 
Q. Is the protein cubes you mentioned, the same as “cake feed” PW talked about in prior posts about feeding? Also the supplemental mineral, is that what might be also called “salt licks?”

A. Yes and yes—although in our area we use salt and mineral from bags, not large blocks. We put them in tubs that are placed in strategic areas of each pasture.

 
 
Q. How in the world do you keep track of all your cattle, down to which one was bred and how old this one is and when it’s time for that one to go…and tell them apart?

A. The short answer is when you work them in the fall, you separate them by groups and keep them in separate pastures. The reality is, it’s constant, non-stop work. Sorting and shaping cattle to keep them straightened out is a huge part of our job.

 
 
Q. I’ve got a question! You mentioned that steers are worth more, and that you assume a 50/50 split between steers/heifers. I was reading an interview with a dairy farmer who mentioned that they use sperm sorting and artificial insemination on their dairy cows – this lets them have mostly heifer calves that will stay on the farm and get milked once they’re grown. Is it practical and/or cost effective for you to do something similar, to get mostly steers?

A. See above. It’s not practical or cost effective right now. It may be in the future, but that still feels like a long way off.

 
 
Q. What is the difference between steers/heifers?

A. Steers are male, and heifers are female.

 
 
Q. How did you learn to do all these processes? Did your dad teach you? Did you get schooling for it?

A. I learned just from doing it. There is a lot to know, but most of it is just common sense gained through years of experience.

 
 
Q. So is there really any such thing as a grass fed (purely) animal?

A. Yes. They are just cattle that have been raised on strictly grass. There are people that specialize in raising only grass fed beef.

 
 
Q. Is it just me or does that calf have an irritated or evil look on its face?

A. He does look a little annoyed.

 
 
Q. I know that there are only so many hours in the day and work is work, but are chickens too much extra work?

A. Yes. Chickens are evil.

Note from PW: I’ll be getting chickens soon! Heh heh heh.

 
 
Q. What breed of cattle do you raise? Crossbreds?

A. We raise mostly Angus cattle but we do have some Brangus and my brother has his Herefords.

 
 
Q. And do you keep back all the heifers to breed, or do some of them get shipped off with the steers? Also, what’s wrong with a Brahma influence?

A. Most of our heifers will get shipped off with the steers. Only the best of the heifers will be kept for breeding.

Some buyers don’t like Brahma’s. Brahma’s have a thinner hide and will not handle the cold as well as pure Angus or more English type cattle. The flip side is, they do handle hot weather better, which is why many people in the southern states have cattle with some Brahma influence.

 
 
Q. Are there a bunch of bulls intermingled among the herd of bachelorettes? If so, do the bulls fight amongst themselves to get a “date?” If the bulls do fight, is there ever a concern they will harm one another? And finally, do bulls really go cookoo when they see the color red?

A. Yes, the bulls will fight among themselves and occasionally hurt each other. That’s another cost of doing business.

A bull is either cookoo or he isn’t (some bulls are just crazy ) The color red isn’t the problem.

 
 
Q. Can you talk more about grass fed, organic, grass finished, etc… beef and what the various terms mean to the consumer.

A. This is another topic I need to post about. I’ll try to do that sometime soon.

 
 
 
When I was forty-three with a cowlick and love handles, and I had kids of my own and a husband I loved, and my sister had her own baby and I grew tomatoes in my garden, I had a Basset Hound.

 
 
 
The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Amen.

(And woof.)

Love,
P-Dub

I’ve missed you.

Have you missed me, too?

 
 
If someone had told me when I was eighteen that I would one day miss cows, I would have uttered the following phrase:

“Say wha?”

Then I would have scratched my head, looked at them with confusion, and run away.

Oh, how life changes.

 
 
Wait, cows. Where are you going? Did you not miss me, too?

It appears that when it comes to human-bovine separation, “Absence makes the heart grow fonder” does not go both ways.

Oh, and they’re not cows, Ree.

They’re steers.

I just love it when I get to correct myself.

 
 
Hello, road! Oh, how I’ve missed you, too.

 
 
Hello, cattle guard that leads to our homestead! Thank you for welcoming me with open arms.

I mean an open gate.

 
 
Hello, homestead!

I can’t wait to hug you and kiss you and squeeze you.

And call you George.

 
 
 
She liked it.

Raise your hand if you love Enchanted more every time you watch it.

I think it’s Amy Adams’ very, very, very, very best role.

And the chemistry between Amy and Patrick? Especially toward the end when they’re dancing? Someone throw ice water on me.

 
 
 
Flying into Los Angeles is quite the experience.

The phrase “urban sprawl” comes to mind.

 
 
 
Look! There’s my dorm!

That was a fun little bonus.

 
 
 
Bets and I stayed in a really pretty hotel and we’ve never had more fun sitting on a sofa in a hotel room in our lives. We cracked up and solved the world’s problems and cracked up and reminisced about things and cracked up and reverted and regressed to adolescence and it was positively wonderful.

Sisters are…well, there’s just nothing like them.

 
 
 
After a couple of days in Los Angeles, we flew to Phoenix and met Marlboro Man and my two boys and we all had dinner together.

My baby took this photo.

That’s why I have a look of mushy love on my face.

 
 
 
I ate this for dinner. It was actually an appetizer, and it changed my life. A cold lobster tail with garlic aioli.

It was one of the most earthshattering things I’ve ever put in my mouth.

The next day, we all went to my book signing and met the kindest people. As kind as the people had been in Pasadena, and as kind as the people had been in Seattle, and as kind as the people have been in the places I’ve gotten to visit over the past six weeks.

After the signing in Phoenix, Marlboro Man and I went back to the same restaurant in our hotel. We sat in the bar and I ordered the same lobster appetizer and we watched Thunder beat the Mavericks and I yelled “Yay!” involuntarily.

When we got back to the room, Betsy and the boys were watching the new Muppet movie, and Betsy and I started reminiscing about the original Muppet movie and how I used to have a Miss Piggy poster on my bedroom door. Then we started crying and the boys asked Mama and Aunt Betsy what in the world was wrong.

“The Muppets,” we said. “They just…they mean a lot to us, boys!”

Then the boys went and found Marlboro Man and asked them what the Thunder score was. They wanted no part of our nostalgic meltdown.

Marlboro Man, the boys, and I had all day before we had to leave so we spent the afternoon driving around and looking at sights. While we were driving down the road, I saw a sign that read “Extraordinary Doughnut” and I got really excited.

Then a few seconds later, I looked again and realized it read “Culinary Dropout.”

I think I need to get my eyes checked when I get home.

 
 
 
I love succulents.

 
 
 
I tried not to look at them. They’re so glorious and bizarre and beautiful…but I just can’t grow very many of them on the ranch.

It hurt my horticultural soul.

I’ll tell you what else hurt my soul, but in a different way: We were walking through a hotel lobby and I saw an elderly gentleman (probably in his late eighties) sitting alone at a small table. He was holding a pen and very, very slowly writing on a postcard. Three blank postcards sat on the table, too. He clearly had plans for them all.

Whom was he writing? His daughter? An old friend? His grandchildren? His neighbor?

In this world of cell phones and laptops and iPads—a world I reside in happily, I should point out—it touched me to see the man writing the postcards.

Then I started missing my grandmothers.

I’m going to send Ga-Ga a postcard today.

 
 
 
Marlboro Man, the boys, and I flew to Albuquerque last night.

Tomorrow we’ll be home on the ranch.

 
 
 
This reminded me of the Twilight Zone movie. I kept watching. Watching for that little…man creature. Whatever it was.

What was it, by the way?

I’m not really sure I want to know.

And one last thing: My older boy lost a tooth in Phoenix. When we arrived at the airport, he handed it to me and said “Here, Mama. Take my tooth.”

“What would you like me to do with it?” I asked him.

“Just hold it for me?” he asked.

“Sure,” I said. “Okay.” And I stuck the tooth in the tiny third front pocket of my jeans.

I’m just sharing this story with you to let you know that the tooth did not cause me any trouble at airport security.

You know…just in case it ever comes up in your life.

Love,
Pioneer Woman

My dad always said that we are in the business of selling grass, not cattle. Our main ranch is located in Osage County, Oklahoma. This is on the southern edge of the Flint Hills, one of the best grazing ecosystems in the U.S. To most effectively “sell the grass” on our ranch, we are always evaluating what we think will work the best—”best” being a balance between what is most profitable and what is best for the land. To accomplish this we run three types of operations on our ranch and adjust according to what we think will work the best.

Cow-Calf Operation

This is just what it sounds like: You own a cow herd, then sell the calves that are produced. Cow-calf operations are the backbone of the beef industry and are made up mostly of smaller operations that own anywhere from 10 to 100 cows. It’s considered a more conservative type of cattle operation, but there are still a lot of variables that affect its profitability.

The largest variable with any cow-calf operation is the conception rate. A cow has a nine-month gestation period and you need all of your cows to get bred back almost as soon as they’ve given birth. Getting the cows bred back is paramount to having a profitable cow-calf operation, as you need to be able to sell a calf from your cows every year so that you’ll have the income.

Spring Calving vs. Fall Calving

Most cow-calf operations in the U.S. have spring-calving cows, which means the calves are born in the spring of every year. Spring calving season is usually from March to May in our area, but calving season varies in different parts of the country depending on the climate (the further north an operation is, the later they prefer their calving season so as to avoid inclement weather.) The calves will remain by their mothers’ sides until about eight months of age. Then they will be weaned and sold somewhere from October to December.

On our ranch, we also have fall-calving cows, where the cow gives birth in the fall (ideally somewhere from September to the end of November) and the calves are weaned in July or August of the next year.

I prefer fall-calving cows for two reasons: One, the calves are bigger when they’re weaned (calf size at weaning is one of the biggest differences between profitable and unprofitable cow operations) and after being weaned, the steers can be kept on the ranch for three months on grass and then sold as a full-grown yearling weighing 750 pounds. After weaning, the best of the heifer calves make excellent replacement heifers that can be bred that fall and be ready to calve the next fall.

The second reason I prefer fall-calving cows better is that if they don’t get bred back in the fall after giving birth, they can still get bred back the following spring. This allows for your cows not to get bred back right away but still not miss a year of income.

That might be a little confusing, so I’ll lay it out a bit: A cow bred in the fall of 2011 will give birth in the fall of 2012. Then you will wean that calf in 2013 (this should give you an idea of how long-term the cattle business is). Now, you will put bulls back on those cows almost as soon as they give birth so they will have one calf gestating and one calf sucking. If the fall-calving cow that gave birth in 2012 doesn’t get bred back in the fall, then you can hopefully still get her bred in the spring of 2013 to ensure that she will give birth to a calf in the spring of 2014. A cow that gets bred in the spring of 2013 will give birth in the spring of 2014 and have a calf to sell in the fall of that year the same as the cow that got bred in the fall of 2012.

Conversely, if a spring-calving cow gives birth in the spring of 2012 and doesn’t get bred back until the fall of that year, then the next calf will be born in the fall of 2013 and you won’t be able to sell anything until the Fall of 2014. This will leave you selling the first calf in the fall of 2012 and the next calf in 2014, making 2013 a very long year without income.

So in short, you can go from fall to spring without losing a year of revenue. But if you go from spring to fall you will miss a paycheck along the way.

Feeding the Cows

In order to ensure a good conception rate, your cows need to be fat and happy. This means providing them with plenty of grass. For us, in our area, it takes an average of seven acres for each cow-calf unit. Our grass will lose most of its protein content in the winter months, so even though there is usually plenty of forage left in the winter, we have to supplement them with protein cubes during the winter. This is a feed made from wheat mids and cotton seed meal and will have anywhere from a 20 to 35 percent protein content. We feed our cows 5 to 10 pounds of these cubes a day from mid to late October until mid-April. Another important aspect is providing supplemental mineral, which is kept out in each pasture on a constant basis to provide the cow with whatever nutrients and minerals she is not getting from the grass.

The Bulls

Once you’ve covered all your bases to make sure the cows are in good shape, you still have to address the other part of the conception equation: the bulls. We, like most commercial cow calf operations, buy our bulls from a registered breeder who specializes in raising bulls. This is not the cheapest way, but using quality bulls is the quickest way to improve the quality of your calves. It takes one bull per 15 to 20 cows, and you need to replace your bulls every 4 to 6 years.

Even doing all you can to assure the highest possible conception rate on your cows, you still need to plan for 10 to 20 percent of your cows not getting bred back. This can be for all sorts of reasons: age, health, or even a bad bull (despite his best efforts). Regardless, you need to have a plan to address this problem because you can’t afford to run cows that are not producing calves. What we do is try to start with fall-calving cows, and if they slide to spring-calving it’s no big deal. But once they fail to get bred back as a spring-calving cow we will have to replace her with another cow.

Replacing Cows

There are two ways to replace a cow. One is to breed some of your own heifer calves as replacements. As I said earlier, this works well with taking the larger, better end of our fall calves to come back into the herd with a good young cow. You get a high quality replacement this way but it requires you to set aside room to grow these heifers for a year until they have their first calf. The hardest part of any cow-calf operation is waiting to see your results. The breeding decisions you make today won’t come to fruition for two years, when you will finally have a calf to sell.

The other way to replace a cow is to buy a bred cow or heifer as a replacement. Because of the drought in the south over the last couple of years, it has been much less expensive to buy a replacement cow than to raise your own. Now that it looks like we might have a better weather year, I think those dynamics will change. So this year we made plans to breed a lot of our own heifers.

Losses

The goal of a cow-calf operation is do all you can to make sure that all of the cows you have are producing. Because unfortunately, despite your best efforts, a small number of cows and calves will not make it. You can lose calves—and even cows—to sickness, blizzards, coyotes, lightning, tornadoes, or even to an occasional oil pump jack. In the latter scenario, the oil company that owns the jack will reimburse you for the loss. But all of the others factors are just one of the many costs of raising cattle. You should plan on losing .5 to 2 percent of your cows, and 2 to 5 percent of your calves per year. (Some of the calf loss will be cows that were considered bred but wound up not having calves because either the vet called it wrong or a miscarriage occurred.) Cow and calf losses are the hardest part of our business, not just because it hurts financially, but because it takes an emotional toll as well. We go through and take care of these cattle every day during the winter and spring calving seasons, feeding them, doctoring them, pulling calves, and doing whatever we can do to take care of them. It’s hard to lose one, especially the baby calves.

Profitability

When the cattle market is good as it is now, a cow-calf operation can be very profitable. It does require a lot of work and management, but it is worth it when you’re producing a product that you’re proud of and you’re able to make a living doing it. Most cowmen are proud of the cattle they raise.

To evaluate whether we think we should be using more of our ranch for our cow-calf operation, we have to keep all of the above factors in mind. We also consider the amount of effort involved verses the profit that can be made per acre. To help with the profit side, we will go through a thorough break-even analysis to determine what our return-per-acre is. A rough example is below:

Revenue assumptions: 50/50 calf split between heifers and steers (one thing I didn’t mention is that steer calves are preferable to heifers because they are worth more. They are worth more because they gain weight faster and cheaper than heifers) and a 95% weaning rate.

Expense assumptions:
All replacement cows are bought, not raised.
Replace 15% of the cows each year.
One employee per 1,000 cows.
Borrowing $1,000 per cow at 4% interest (most ranchers, us included, have to borrow money to buy the cattle).
Miscellaneous expenses: insurance, property taxes, marketing expenses, utilities, weed spraying, etc.

The gross profit-per-acre of $50 would be the highest return we’ve ever had for a cow calf operation. Then take into account that it cost $1,100 per acre to buy the land and your return on investment is an unremarkable 4.5%—if you own your land free and clear. If you are leasing your land then you will need to add another expense for rent, which will run from $20 to $25 per acre. If you’ve borrowed money to buy the land, you will probably be paying yourself the full $50 in rent each year to make your note payment…but on the bright side, you should own it free and clear in 20 years.

As I said: Agriculture is a long, long-term business.

Because this took me so long to get through I will try to cover the other two types of cattle operations next week. In the meantime, I’m sure I’ve missed something so if you have any questions please let me know and I will try to answer.

Sushi
Macarons
Quesadillas
Chocolate
Diet Cokes
Diet Dr Pepper
Soup
Lemon Meringue Pie
Salad
Wine
Coffee

And doing the things sisters do, which in our case is:

Get our toenails painted
Watch Bravo
Giggle
Laugh
Snort
Watch Bravo
Giggle
Laugh
Snort
Watch Bravo

And talking about the things sisters talk about, which in our case is our kids.

 
How big her boy has gotten and how it seems like only yesterday that I darted to Austin the second she told me she was in labor so that I could make it by the time he was born.

 
 
 
And how my kids, her nieces and nephews…

 
 
 
Are suddenly grown adults compared to what they’ve always seemed like to Betsy: little bitty kids.

As we were reflecting on the fact that our kids will soon be senior citizens, Betsy said, “Oh! You have got to watch this.” And she pulled up a video on her computer.

It’s a time lapse collection of video clips a dad shot of his daughter over a period of twelve years. I watched it, and twenty seconds into the video, tears were rolling out of both my eyes.

Two minutes later, I was sobbing. It crushed me. But in a good way.

I don’t regularly post videos here, but I couldn’t stand not sharing this one with you.

Sniff.

Wah.

Sniff.

Love,
P-Dub