Its sometimes hard to believe how fast the year goes by on a cattle ranch.  We always like to spend some time planning the year in January and February because once calving arrives in March, it seems like it is full steam ahead until November. 

2024 is jammed packed with fun and exciting new things! Here is a bit of a yearly ranch life summary of our upcoming year.

January 

We are so thankful that the snow started to fall! We received about 20 inches in January, so we had a few snow days after all this winter. Snow days means shovelling grain troughs and plowing snow, in between the daily ranch chores in the winter. Throughout the month, we worked on finishing up our books for 2023 and planning for 2024. We have some exciting new products coming this year!

February

We have processed the cowherd and we have started to get the corrals ready for calving.  Next on the list is processing the ewes ready for lambing season. February is usually a lot of prep so that we can be prepared for the first calves and lambs to arrive.

March

We will be in full swing of calving and lambing this month. We are very excited about some embryo transfer calves and the calves from some new sires that we used last spring. I will try to bring you along as much as possible during calving!

April

April will definitely be the month of fencing! Between the annual fencing and all the fencing from the fire, we will definitely be consumed with building fences. Along with that, we will need to do the spring field work and process calves and cows ready for spring turnout. 

May

May is usually when we turn most of the cows out to their summer pastures and turn the bulls out with them. We are hoping to do some artificial insemination on a group of cows again and the boys will be getting into full swing with working their show cattle. They keep adding to their list, so they are going to definitely keep busy. 

June

June is usually a bit quieter, but I think this year, we will still be working on fencing from the fire at this point in the year. The boys have their first show this month and depending on the moisture situation, haying season may start. We are hoping we get lots of moisture at the beginning of the year, but if not, hay, pasture and water may be quite dire. We also check pastures and cattle throughout all the summer months, and keep our fingers crossed that the bulls stay in! 

July 

We usually are in full swing of haying and continuing with the show cattle prep. Hopefully no forest fires this year! 

August

Haying is usually wrapping up in August, and we usually have to move some cattle around. We have a lot of beef and lambs being processed in August, so we are usually doing quite a few pickups and deliveries.

September 

In September, we work on getting the corrals ready for fall when we bring the cattle home. Some of the cattle are hauled home towards the end of September and the boys attend a cattle show and sell their steer projects. 

October

October is the cattle month when we are weighing, processing and selling our calves. We also preg check the cow herd and turn the cows out onto fall grass. 

November

The cows will hopefully be on fall pasture still and then we usually bring them home and start to feed hay sometime in November, hopefully after the middle of the month. Another set of lambs will be processed and we will have 2025 calendars available for purchase.

December 

December is the month of feeding and finalizing the books from the year. It is usually a bit quieter and we always love when the skiing season opens! 

Exciting Future

A lot of this year will be dependent on the weather. Our fingers are crossed for lots of moisture as we are very very dry right now! 

We have beef being processed almost every month this year and we are continuing with our weekly beef deliveries. We also have lambs being processed in August and November. We are looking forward to expanding into some new products and we are excited to tell you more about them throughout the year!