View From the Range

Editor's Note: Since 2005, DTN/Progressive Farmer readers have followed along on farms across the country to know what farmers do with their crops from planting to harvest through View From the Cab. Now readers will be able to do the same on a cattle ranch with our new series: View From the Range.

**

Throughout the year on a cattle ranch, many things happen -- from calving to branding and feeding to vaccinating -- as cattle ranchers have many duties to ensure their animals are properly cared for. Follow along throughout the year as we travel to Kiowa, Colorado, for our first View From the Range, at Silver Spur Ranch.

This ranch is one of the largest in the country with divisions in Colorado, Wyoming, New Mexico and Nebraska. The Kiowa Creek Division is known as the seedstock provider of Angus, Red Angus and Charolais genetics. Decky Spiller and his wife, Misty, along with seven full-time employees take care of the 1,200 cows over 100,000 acres in three counties.

The Silver Spur Ranches date back to as early as the 1800s and have grown through the years. While each division has a specialty with everything from raising seedstock cattle to high-performing horses and running stocker cattle to commercial cow-calf pairs, they all are doing so with conservation and the future in mind.

Overall, the cattle at Silver Spur are selected for fertility, soundness, moderate birth weight and optimum growth. They have to be real-world cows, according to Decky Spiller, and they must be able to work in high elevations. Bulls from the Kiowa Creek division are supplied to the other ranches and must be able to cover thousands of cows and thousands of acres. High-altitude-adaptable cattle are an important part of the management, as these cattle must run on pastures from 6,000 to 11,000 feet and not have trouble.

Silver Spur has also developed its own cross, called Range Fire composites, a Charolais/Red Angus combination which are used for building replacement females, commercial bulls and feeder cattle. The Range Fire program has helped establish multiple-generation cattle with known performance, like that of the purebred cattle.

Besides providing breeding bulls and replacement females back to the Silver Spur herd, the remainder of the cattle are fed out. "We feed out our own calves at the Nebraska feedlot, but we also sell feeder calves on preconditioned sales," Spiller explained.

January on the Kiowa Creek division is when the first-calf heifers calve, followed by second-calvers in the first week of February, and cows start calving by mid-February. There is always something to be done in preparation for calves and once the calves are on the ground. This is followed by branding, synchronization for breeding, turning bulls out, summer pasture and hay management, and then preparation for weaning time.

Follow along with View From the Range to see how cattle are managed in an area east of Denver in Colorado.

Jennifer Carrico can be reached at jennifer.carrico@dtn.com

Follow her on X, formerly known as Twitter, @JennCattleGal

(c) Copyright 2024 DTN, LLC. All rights reserved.