There is always a lot of ranch work underway - from raising the herd to putting up their winter feed of grass and alfalfa. We invite our guests to meet the ranch crew, work with them and experience ranch life first-hand. Guests are welcome to "cowboy" the herd - riding with the cowhands to look over the herd, moving them as needed and checking our mountain springs and some of our 65 miles of fences.
Our purebred Angus herd is a "mother-cow" operation. That is, calves are born in February or March and shipped off the ranch in October, weighing 550 lbs after having gained about 2 1/2 lbs a day on good mountain grass and their mother's milk. The herd is on the high mountain pastures in late June, July, August, and September and on the lower ranch the rest of the year.
We use both AI (artificial insemination) and pasture breeding by bulls. The most select heifers are kept as replacement breeders. The normal calf crop is 400 calves.
We also keep a few of our steers another nine months to fatten and raise them to their prime weight of about 1150 lbs. These young steers are then processed in our butcher shop, where they are dry-aged 21 days, trimmed, and served with the pride ... the culmination of all the hard work of the entire ranch crew.
The Ranch has nine artesian wells, between 900' and 3000' deep, provide all the water needed for our 600 irrigated acres to grow cattle and horse feed. Our farming equipment is dedicated to this production.
