Good question, cowhunter. There are many reasons. One if that if
you have farming to do, you want to get calving out of the way
before you start farming. Another is irrigating. And the biggest one
is that the early born calves weigh more at shipping time. Some people
are set up to calve early, but they have lots (big corrals) that they
can bring the cattle in to watch, or they have good naturall protection.
Didn't look like the Galt ranch had either.
Watching the ranchers in that storm, knowing you are going to have
that every year, perhaps not as severe, would be enough to
calve later. The Galt ranch didn't even have protection and it seems
to me if you can afford a helicoptor you could afford to calve later and have lighter calves. With no protection, looks to me like the Galt
ranch is just asking for it calving that early. But that's only my opinion.
Kit Pharo will show you that a semi-load of 450 lb. calves is worth
more than a semi-load of 650 lb. calves, but not everyone listens
to Kit Pharo. Dead calves don't pay many bills either.
And I couldn't figure out why they were trying to bulldog that bull. :shock:
(Which didn't look much like a bull.) It just made me think that
some people will go through a lot to keep from riding a horse.
I'm not putting anyone down that uses 4-wheelers, cuz we use them
too now. But 3000 head of cattle and no horses is a head scratcher
to me. The Stuckys or the Hughes ranch would have roped that bull
horseback if they needed to.
I'll be glad when the storm is over on this program and there is better
weather...