Cattle First Documentary

[Music] [Music] come on babies do babies come on babies I am so incredibly proud of ranching I'm proud of my great-great-grandfather for you know starting us on this path and instilling whatever it is that allows my family to make this work you know in changing times and it's a very simple thing you know we are turning grass into protein to do that well is a very worthy job it's a good thing [Music] [Music] well girls how we make our life in the hood provide for our families all to find diamonds having healthy cattle that reproduce have healthy babies that grow and perform well and to accomplish that we got to make sure we're doing things right we got to make sure we're grazing right we got to make sure our animal health and animal performs is right [Music] [Applause] [Music] animals existed and thrived before human interaction and we have found that you take care of your animals in a way that nature took care of them you kind of removed yourself let the cattle behave naturally see how that benefits them how that benefits the environment that they graze upon and you know it all just kind of works together it's pretty humbling to see that happen [Music] flying Diamond Ranch is a family-owned and operated cow calf and yearling operation that's been headquartered in eastern Colorado since 1907 when my great great grandfather Charlie Collins founded the ranch the ranch scattered out over 50 thousand plus acres thousands a head of cattle my wife Jean and I owned the flying diamond but now we've incorporated in our four kids benda ownership and management of the range we have property west cliff Colorado in the mountains and they'll old family ranch isn't Kit Carson then we have some property halfway between west cliffs and Kit Carson it's 4,000 acres and we're kind of evolving you know fine where everyone fits well Jennifer's kind of in charge of our grazing Charlie's managing the ranch and Kit Carson miles he does kind of the administration admin for it my wife Jean and I kind of manage a few of these Front Range things our oldest son wills the CEO kind of keeps the whole thing together and mom you know she's kind of a guiding light for the family I think that's been one of our unfair competitive advantages in our family for the hundred and fifteen years is we've always really valued the women they're all out here roping they're all out here giving shots I mean they're doing all we're doing out here every day we're just a better unit by using the girls and the guys equally out here I could remember a lot of bumping around in the truck with my dad while he was throwing hay off the back I mean I can't ever remember not wanting to go out and you know check cows feed cows do whatever big dog and I don't know if there's a lot of other industries or careers where literally your entire family is a vital element of a job you have to get done do you know why they're coming to see us because they're curious do you think they want food or did they just want to know who we are I love being able to bring my daughter out into nature in a way that is you know very different than going on a hike it's we're working in nature it could have matters on a pretty you know deep big level it's working with animals and you know this is different than our dogs this is understanding how animals interact with nature and what our part is in that giving that knowledge and imparting that on my daughter from a very young age I just love that and I hope you know she grows to love that I have amazing days out on the ranch amazing memories that I'm so happy and grateful to have and now I have the opportunity to contribute so the next generations may have some of those good days my wife who grew up in the city is very excited to have already children to grow up in this lifestyle for now going into the sixth generation and for a family business to last that long especially in the cattle industry is amazing you have the perspective of the generations that have come before you that have really poured their blood sweat and tears into making this place that we're currently benefiting from and then now I have my son you know we're working to make this place the best that it can possibly be so that he and his cousins have an opportunity to come back to the ranch and make it better than we have in this generation [Music] grandpa calls he left home when they had 13 and went to Mexico and was hired on some of those cattle drives that were bringing cattle from down there up to Kansas Montana for watering for those large herds okay this ranch was foreclosed at the time and that would have been probably 1900 maybe and they sent him out to manage it so he came out and branched it and then he decided well he would like to buy it my dad I said he didn't get it paid off until 1944 just before he died Wow so it took him a long time I didn't realize that I got through the Great Depression yeah he went through some tough times all same loyal cattle prices dry now dry in the 30s decimal goes right that was really bad and then always worried about enough rain to help make enough grass for the separator that still the basic cow calf operation you know and the branches just stayed with it yeah you know if you just stay with them they're pretty loyal the ranch is just a continuous thing just goes on and it's part of your life it's very special the beauty of nature I just feel it was the right place to be to grow up when you see all your great grandchildren running around is it you know something you just can't really believe that's right no I'm so grateful that's just exactly the dream come true [Music] for generations before me that their job in their role is providing this opportunity to me in my siblings I know it's possible if I work hard if I do things right I'm going to lay that opportunity after my kids [Music] ranching kind of at its most simple is turning free resources sunlight and a little moisture into grass and then grass into beef [Music] that to me is the ultimate symbiosis of nature and animals and man it all has to work together and we have to really work at understanding and caring for the land the best way to do that is through really paying attention to your grazing [Music] our grazing philosophy is to mimic the environment these prairies and this grassland is developed over for millennials back in the day the Buffalo were in tight tight clusters you can imagine 500,000 had Buffalo really tightly compact when they hit new grass it take an hour for the herd to pass through so when they left it was very heavily grazed but then the key to that is they would migrate so they wouldn't be back to the same place for a year or six months or stuff so there's intensive grazing but then long recovery that's how the prairies of North America evolved so to mimic that what we do is these temporary fences to really concentrate our herd into small areas get a lot of hoofs breaking up the soil cap getting their manure and urine in a concentrated area hitting it really hard but then through temporary fencing and whatnot we can keep them off that for a long time and get that necessary recovery period this fence line really demonstrates where the cattle have been and where they haven't been you can really see the herd impact that this happened [Music] we have worked really hard to set up a pretty intensive rotational grazing system that is kind of like a Rubik's Cube to think about and put together correctly so that the cattle are moving through our prairie in a way that gives any one spot of grass rest you know ninety-five percent of the time here we move our herds daily so we move them quite a bit make your own say girls let's go new pasture new pasture [Music] our prairie out in eastern Colorado at headquarters where we've been for a hundred plus years that's all native prairie rangeland [Music] what that means is that all of the moisture comes from rain we don't have any irrigation to supplement rainfall here in West Cliff we have a lot of irrigation because we have mountain water most branches what they'll do is they'll take native range plow it up reseed it with a monoculture hay harvest it and then feed that to their cows during the winter we're taking the approach of removing machinery from the land here and replacing that with nature's best Harvester the cow [Music] [Music] in the next couple of years there won't be hopefully a monoculture of just hay more plant species will be here because the cattle will be turning up this soil urine manure and then just natural seed pollen from native range around will turn that hay ground back into native range [Music] the name of the game is making any piece of ground grow more grass which means making it healthier the cattle you know their nutritional needs are going to be met in our grazing program and their job is to produce a calf every single year that is their most important and really only job we want our cattle to work really well in our environment that is how we turn free resources into a product that the world wants we calves later than most ranchers we don't really start until May so that the mother is in you know peak physical condition and has all the grass resources she needs to raise a healthy calf we try to be pretty in sync with nature I mean the deer and antelope are being born now this is when we think mother nature wants cattle to be born there are a number of ranchers that are farming like right now they're busy planting their corn their crops so they don't have time to mess with their cattle now so they would want to do their cabbing in January or February but for us we're real comfortable doing it the way we're doing it with nature [Music] we'll just head down here in the creek and start looking for some cows and root cabin as a cow-calf operation our business is get animals pregnant and having healthy babies I think if you have calves kind of in very stressful times of the year you're inviting more health problems we really eliminate most of those problems by calving and sync with nature in our case may owe ya yeah boy they sure popped in the last few days I think we've probably have 60 calves out here yeah 30% they come they come there's a couple hundred cows out here and 99% of them will do it on their own but the 1% will have a backward or breech calf and then we would help the mother deliver the calf we could go look at that bad red bat bag yeah you've got her number down I did yeah we can get rid of her it's kind of ironic that most of the time you want more milk but there's a good example of too much milk literally that other could be of the type that the calf can't nurse so I mean it's a life and death situation we've got to find another home for that calf but I think this one's gonna work out alright little heifer calves persistent yeah it's the only way it's gonna survive these are all cows they've all had calves before and that's why we're not particularly worried about them having calving difficulties now they've all been bred to our Bulls and we are very cognizant about having calving EES Bulls we call them Bulls that have been proven and they don't throw big calves so that when these are out in nature they can have the counts fairly easily these female calves that these cows are having we will keep all of those and they'll have their first calf when they're two years old [Music] there's no more important health period in a cattles life in the month or two leading up to their birth [Music] this is the first time they're having a calf their hips are smaller cervix is smaller such as we keep a better eye on them and assist them if a problem arises [Music] we try to consult with our vets and try to do what they say she's probably four nights ago in the middle of night I was gonna turn them out yesterday because they looked good but then I started noticing that it looks like there's an infection in there doesn't it yeah it looks pretty tough a lot better than she did five days ago I'm involved with pretty much all aspects of animal care on a ranch some preventive medicine to herd planning to emergency situations to sick animal care her uterus hasn't contracted down normally so it is a uterine infection Carley penicillins will be our best shot then and we'll need to keep her close in for the crown after we treat her vaccinations are a key part of a preventive health protocol but in any situation just like in humans even if you do the best you can to keep your kids healthy we do the best we can to keep our cattle healthy every once in a while you'll get one that's sick and in those situations we believe the most responsible thing to do is to treat them with scientifically proven antibiotics to help clear up their infections and then this one definitely got like ie problem mm-hmm he's been patched last two days but he knocked off the patch we can definitely try to treat that I because it's probably painful I think there's been a lot of misinformation about how antibiotics are being used in livestock and the safeguards that we have in place in our industry to make sure that those antibiotics are not in the food products that we're selling to consumers we don't mass treat all animals we just treat the ones that are sick and this kind of helps with swelling or what is that this will help with any kind of infection from that irritation and then patching it hopes because the direct Sun on the I can increase the discomfort so patching it and keeping it in the dark will help it heal faster how long do you leave that on just let it come about a week but it'll just drop off on its own when it's ready oftentimes consumers feel that you know cattle are just a product for us or the end product is this beef but in reality it's a way of life it's a culture it's incredibly important to us the quality of life that our animals to maintain we want to provide them with the best care so we make sure that once antibiotics are used and those animals undergo a withdrawal period in which they cannot be consumed or slaughtered until all the antibiotic is out of their body we're doing our darndest to create the healthiest animals we can because that helps us healthy animals lead to pregnant animals lead to healthy calves [Music] [Music] it's incredible at a newborn calf to stand up I don't know five ten minutes tops and it's up and second you know I think when your motivation the only way for you to eat is to stand up I think that's pretty good motivation she'll take care of that calf for the next six months he'll be right at her side getting all of his nutrition from her in a month from now we will brand that calf along with all the other calves and give it its round of vaccines pretty simple life [Music] all our cabs there about a month old they've been grazing and growing and now we had to start their vaccine program we're doing it you know what best prepares us for avoiding any major health risk in our cattle in the state of Colorado is legally required to brand your cattle so we do have to brand and since we're doing vaccinations at 30 days of age we figure we might as well do that other stuff all together but the real reason for branding in light happens this time of year is to get those vaccinations and get that health booster in the cattle [Music] we get down to Florida before 5:30 saddle our horses [Music] and then we just write out [Music] we're doing the five days of branding back to back and it could be pretty difficult out here that could be a hundred degrees literally the dirt could be blowing we are on horseback gathering up the cattle from there 300 or 400 capacitor into the set of Corral's honestly that's the most challenging part of the day that's where things can go south where the calves and the cows we start paired up very well and they're looking around for each other and that's can get a little Western and 99% of the days there's not really a legitimate excuse to get up early and ride but branding you have like a big job you have to get done you have to gather the entire herd not a pleasure ride [Music] come on babies come on babies come on babies [Music] all right come on guys let's go you're big enough hey hey hey wait a lot of baby cabs it's right now we're just sorting the baby calves for their moms so we could brand the calves vaccinate calves without the cows being in the way this is somewhat of an intense situation when we're working cattle you know for sorting calves from cows you have to really be careful about your cattle health at all stages [Music] speeds important here because you know the longer the calf is from its mother you know the more stress out its gonna be so we want that process be as short as possible and try to be in and out of here [Music] during branding your guys roping them pulling them close to the fire where the brands are and the vaccines are two guys hold them on the ground we're putting the brand on the calf we were giving it to vaccinations a fly tag castrating the males all that stuff I mentioned happens in about 60 seconds obviously there's a lot going on right now and it looks very chaotic but we are really trying to minimize the amount of time that that calf is on the ground just because you know this is a stressful event and we just want it all to happen as quick as possible [Music] okay I'm gonna try again when we were gathering we saw this calf with its mom which is a good sign but we noticed the calf wasn't doing well in the branding Corral it seemed to be really weak so we pulled it out to get it in the shade thankfully Laura came our vet and we're getting him some electrolytes and then Laura gave him OB vitamin b12 shot and some silver bullet is so hopefully he'll be back on his feet and with his mom one of the good things about these work days where we're bringing them all in is that we do get to see more of a one-on-one look on what cows and their calves health is because they're all here and we can treat it a lot easier than we can out in the pasture should we get him back with his mom or eventually if you can get her in here so that he can see the shade you just needed a little water and shade we're in the business of animal husbandry so you know we want animals to be happy and healthy but it's also our bottom line so we need to make sure that they're okay so that our business can keep functioning and running but I mean really first and foremost we care about the animals and it's always will treat an animal because it's the right thing to do we don't want anything to suffer he looks so much better [Music] [Laughter] [Music] okay I bet I've got a load Alfa you're loading outfit Jim okay I'll do it in this pyramid shot it's for respiratory and another shot an Alfa brand of seven-way for a lot of things that calves might get the first year of life it gives it an immunity we vaccinate our entire herd so that they remain healthy throughout the summer and into weaning when we sell the male's these vaccinations are so important for animal welfare it makes a real significant difference in the herd health common cattle diseases can spread throughout the herd and all of a sudden you've got very sick baby calves who are just you know not gaining weight not thriving and it can just spread like wildfire through your herd it means that you're having to doctor those calves and you might have to dub doctor a multiple times which means you know from an animal welfare standpoint more points of contact with that animal and probably its mother multiple times which we don't want to have that and it just means that overall your calf herd is gonna do poorly you're not gonna wean as much calf weight as you would have otherwise so you know it's it's a very real consequence of not preventing that problem this sets them on a good path so that they can thrive all summer [Music] five days of branding can be very dangerous [Music] you know you have 1200 pound horses hot irons needles and scalpels all this stuff going on but you know it's just fun to be around the family and doing this [Music] we have five grandkids on the ground - were coming and they were hanging around the branding [Music] you know they're little now but I mean they're starting to like to sit on the horse and like to see what's going on [Music] oh boy mom you nose in her locker and on oxygen and she still wants to get out when we're branding and see what's going on I'd rather be out there working and helping brands really obviously [Music] we're done girls now we let those Cavs back out with cows and they'll find each other cattle find each other by scent and call not by vision all this mooing [Music] they're calling each other [Music] and within I don't know half a day every cow and her calf again then they settle down and go back to grazing and cows go back to nursing it's all back to war now we leave them alone for about three months they will spend all summer at their mother's side enjoying Prairie lifestyle come early fall will bring those calves in they'll get their second round of vaccinations the majority of the males are steers at that point will sound a feeder operation a small portion of the male's will become Bulls and they will go into our breeding program and then all of our females will get exposed meaning turned out on a bowl or artificially inseminated that following August to get into the cow herd and they're now a cow in this day and age we have iPads and we have internet and you know digital world and all that and in agriculture that's definitely there but then there's literally dazed I am doing a task that my great-great granddad was doing in 1907 in the exact same way horses ropes people on the same property it's the same day fast-forward 115 years and when you take a second to think about it it's kind of pretty powerful [Music] truly as a rancher in Ag production our decisions are for the animals well-being in any when your livelihood depends on an animal and literally you're making your living you're feeding your family through stewardship and caretaking of animals putting animals first I think it's just you know a guiding principle of our ranches in my assessment there's a lot of misunderstandings of what production agriculture really is in the United States and yet that's what the consumers hearing that's what is shaping their choices when they are the supermarket and whatnot I here I think we all hear about factory farming and corporate farming we the Johnson family the fine diamon ranch we'd be considered a large cow calf operation this is what it looks like [Music] it's almost always family operation [Music] guys like me are raised in beef in America I think a really amazing thing about family ranching is that your heart is always going to be in the right place because you're doing this for family [Music] that means you will do the right thing for the environment you will do the right thing for your cows and you'll do the right thing so that this it's for a family [Music] and there's no greater purpose than [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Boehringer Ingelheim Cattle Health

Views: 332,072

Rating: 4.8571429 out of 5

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Id: 1LJaANm7B6k

Length: 39min 43sec (2383 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 07 2020