Weaning calves

We made the rounds through our longhorn and corriente cows and gathered up all the calves that were old enough to wean. We almost never sell our roping cattle, and rarely buy steers to rope. They make cheap cows that will survive anywhere. With an angus bull we get some ok calves. The heifers will go to a cutting horse trainer, who takes good care of them while he is using them, and the steers will be turned out until they are around 800 pounds, then sold.

In the tub

Heifers

Bulls, we will try to sell these for heifer bulls this spring

Steers

Heifers that just came out of the roping pen

A few pictures from the ranch rodeo

Judd was ready, and wanting in there real bad

I sponsored an event

Gray mare, awaiting further instuctions

Cattle

The vast majority are brahma

In Costa Rica. These guys run every thing on grass and mineral. They feed nothing. I was amazed to find out they are weaning their calves, turning them back out on grass until they are 12- 1400 pounds, then sending them to a feed yard for a 40 day finish, all by the time the cattle are 20 - 22months old.

A 35 year old tree

These steers have never seen a feed sack

Kyle and Seth did find time to have some fun

Bananas every meal! I thought I was in heaven.

A bit and rings

After google troubles all week I am finally able to post again. Thanks to the google gods for allowing me to do this.

This bit is going to our annual IGBSM sale. http://www.igbsm.org

These rings are going to raw hide braider Billy Albin and will be used to make hobbles.

More on our trip;

No trip would be complete with out a trip to the sale barn and rodeo arena.

Wild life, this guy was fooling around on the edge of the Arenal  Volcano

The rain forest, I wish some of my monkey pictures had turned out

Costa Rica

We lucked into a trip to Costa Rica. Kyle, Joe, Seth and I took a little agriculture tour of the north end of the country this week, arriving back home Friday evening.A beautiful place. We stayed on a dairy in the mountains between two volcanoes.

From the balcony of my cabin

One of the volcanoes

We road nearly to the top of the other.

Kyle, "getting to know" his horse

You can't understand how much grass is in these mountains unless you have been there and ridden through it. It was quite a sight for some one that has lived through four years of drought in an already semi arid environment.

Bahia, Dallis, Switch, and Star grasses where the most common

I will show and tell more in the next few days. We covered a lot of ground, and visited with lots of good cattlemen. We never met an unfriendly person.

New web site

As you will find out, we are a pretty diverse bunch!
http://www.badaranch.com/index.html

Tractors, the bane of my existence