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Author’s note: This blog is about a real cow on my family’s ranch northwest of Kaycee, Wyoming. While the cow’s “thoughts” and feelings are obviously conjecture, the day-to-day activities and movements of this cow are real. We will follow her throughout the year to all of the pastures she grazes, and she will give her “opinions” about all of them and the happenings within her herd. My family and I spend a lot of time, energy, and resources to make sure the cattle always have plenty to eat; fresh, clean water to drink; and are, for lack of a better phrase, Happy Cows. Please keep in mind that my intentions for this blog are not to “humanize” cows – or any other animal – but merely to provide a look into what a typical cow here at Brock Livestock Company goes through in a given year, and her possible “opinions” about things.
Hello, my name is “Old Number 5” – or at least that is what my ranchers call me. Before I get into what has been going on with me and my herdmates this past month, please permit me to give you a little bit of background about myself. Like the rest of my herdmates, I was born and raised here on this ranch, and have spent my entire life here. In fact, my mother was raised here, as was her mother, and so on – dozens of generations of us have been born and raised right here on the ranch, and all of my herdmates can claim that same heritage. I got my moniker, “Old Number 5” from the ear tag number I had as a youngster. I am not really that old – a robust 7 years – but apparently I somewhat made a name for myself to my ranchers growing up, and they have always held a special affection for me. I will say that the feeling is mutual.
The month of May brought to me my two favorite things in the world – a brand new baby calf and green grass. On the 11th of May I had a baby heifer calf, and I have to say that she is the most beautiful and smartest calf in the whole herd! It was a gorgeous spring day, I found a nice private spot in the hills to give birth, and my baby jumped up and started nursing in nothing flat. She was a little wobbly at first, but in just a couple of weeks she is already outrunning me. On the 15th, my ranchers started moving all of us to fresh pasture. I love it when they move us to fresh pasture! Just like the pasture where I calved, there is a live stream running through this pasture so we always have clean water to drink, and thanks to all of the snow and rain this spring there is plenty of the kinds of grasses that I love to eat. Since a lot of my herdmates had very young calves, it took our ranchers a few days to get all of us moved through the gate to the new pasture. We sure do appreciate their patience with us when we have our young babies; sometimes the little ones get kind of confused….and sometimes we mommas get a little vocal about finding our babies!
We momma cows spend a good portion of our days eating and sleeping – two of my favorite activities. And of course, feeding our babies and taking turns baby sitting for each other. This spring has been a pretty wet one here on the ranch – the wettest of my lifetime – so the grass here is plentiful and it tastes just great. Like everyone else’s calf, my baby is literally getting bigger every day. Soon she will be ready to start the journey to our summer home along the southern end of the Big Horn Mountains. It is a long trek from where we are now, and I’m glad that we have plenty of time to get there and that most of our moves are short ones.
-Jason Williams, Brock Livestock (Jason is one of the valued partner ranchers raising cattle for Tallgrass)
