I’ll love you till the cows come home. That’s something that I heard my grandmother tell me many times as a child. It never made a lot of sense to me. Where did the cows go? Why did they leave? Now that I have grown, I understand that the cows went to grass for the summer, and when they come home, there is no time for anything or anyone else but the cows. Fall works are some of my favorite times on the ranch. Early crisp mornings where the sound of an elk bugle cut the morning air, or the screech of a hawk flying high above the morning gather as we ride the big circle paint pictures in your mind of times long ago.

                  There is something special about seeing all of your hard work trail nose to tail out of the summer ranges. Calves that were gangly and uncoordinated when they hit the ground this spring are now racing each other around the traveling mass of cows. Grass, fresh water and a little salt and mineral were the primary ingredients in this calf crop. Those fancy climate gurus would have you believe that these cattle were hurting this environment, when in fact they utilized a resource that man cannot. Turning grass into protein dense beef is something that only cows can do, no matter what some white coat in a lab tries to tell you.

                  When those calves are sorted from their mothers, the fun begins. Vaccines are given to keep them healthy, and weights are taken to see how much we begin feeding. I’ve weaned a lot of calves in my life, done it a lot of different ways too. The principle is the same for every method, keep the calves away from the cows and try to keep them as content as possible. Everyone has a different opinion about the best way to wean, but the general consensus is that the faster calves can get adjusted to life on their own, the healthier they will be.

                  Weaning is a noisy process. Cows bawl for their calves and the calves return the favor. For about three days they are very loud until they figure out that we aren’t letting them get back together. All day and all night they cry and bawl until we drive the cows to the farthest reaches of the ranch where they can’t hear their calves, and the calves can’t hear them. We start feeding calves and watch them grow in this new chapter of their lives.  

                  Weaning is a stressful time for both ranchers and their stock. Some of the best advice I ever received was that low stress does not mean no stress. There is going to be stress involved whenever you work cattle. The best thing to do is minimize that stress by training your crew, and cattle throughout the year so that they handle better and act as a well-oiled machine.

                  That’s all for this time, good luck to everyone on their fall works and remember to keep tabs on your side of the barbed wire. God bless!

Meinzer is a fourth-generation rancher raised on the southeastern plains of Colorado. He and his family live and ranch in Oshkosh, Neb.