Pregnant or Not, Ranch Lingo, and 5 Year Old on Horseback

Ranch Newsletter: Pregnant or Not, Ranch Lingo, and 5 Year Old on Horseback.

By: Elin Ganschow, Owner Sangre's Best Beef: October 12th 2022

Waiting on two pink lines...Videos Below

Fall on the ranch is always a time of fulfillment, accomplishment, and gratitude as we begin to harvest the herd that took all spring and summer of hard work to accomplish.

But the hard work truly never stops. The moment you get content and stop doing everything you can to prepare for a better future, is the moment you fall behind.

The work in the Fall is by no means easy, it's just different. Obviously, there is all the work that goes into the Beef Harvest, but some of you might not realize part of that includes cow pregnancy checks ("preg-check" in ranch lingo).

"Preg checking" is when we bring in all our bred hefers (more ranch lingo; meaning all the cows from the breeding herd that spent "special time" with the bull) and determine which ones were bred successfully, aka got pregnant.

For the cows that are pregnant they will winter here in Westcliffe and have their calf next spring.

For the cows that are not pregnant ("open hefers") they will be put on the track to be harvested later this fall. We will keep them on our bountiful pastures, and allow them to continue to gain weight and be happy healthy cows.

This may seem like a harsh consequence just for not getting pregnant, but this is a natural, efficient, and essential part of a ranching operation.

The open hefers still serve an honorable purpose by becoming food and energy for families, and their beef is of the highest quality. It would be inefficient to keep them on the ranch because they are not very fertile. So they would take up energy and resources here, when they could instead be harvested at their peak and utilized for our customers.

This is a tradition on our ranch every year. It's one of those activities that brings the ranching community together. For this year, a lot of my close family out, including my 5 year old great-nephew! See if you can spot him in the videos below.

Here's a look at the herd we were preg checking this year. Enjoy!

p.s. I shot all these videos on Horseback...so it's a little shaky lol.