Ranchlands: Survival (Episode 3) | History

whole livelihood is based on the land and if you treat it poorly it'll give back poorly the summertime is when we're paying attention to our grazing because plants are growing so it's very critical how we graze through the summertime especially so we have to manage the cows in such a way that they don't over graze and so our job is to try to go out and understand how each season each dry wet spell comes how do we adapt animals to the natural environment so the herd is evolving over time to fit in where they live so it's survival of the fittest after we've branded we'll pull out the dry cows we call them as a cow that hasn't bred we'll remove them from the gene pool after they're all removed we'll put out the Bulls for the selected breeding season and remove them so we know when all our cows are going to fall next spring put the pipe in behind him ranching is a really poor economic proposition so you can't afford to go out and hire everybody that you need it's really a small group of people besides our family they're involved with the management of the ranches that we manage so this your head gate your squeeze this is your back gate so open close right open close every year we test the cattle see if they're pregnant so we bring animals into the central Corral's and we run them in a chute and feel through the rectum for fetus we always take a bunch of cows out that haven't had cows because they don't produce a calf and then there's no income so then we'll sell them low and brainy's up guys we sort of these out by sight and so we're just making sure we're not selling else got a feast can't afford to hire about to do this stuff so we'd be that which is the kind of traditional way of doing it Maddi me bringing more up as soon as we get down there's no job that we won't do if that's what needs done ranching is very seasonal and all extremes weather affect us whether it's a cold in the winter when we're trying to maintain the nutritional condition of the cattle to the summertime when it doesn't rain in you're needing green grass in a very bad way so we are trying to manage our land and our business and concert with nature as opposed to trying to force things so we use our cow to manipulate the land just like a farm or diesel tractor you increase your densities or decrease your densities you get a different effect on the land if you have a patch that's got a lot of dry matter and you put a thousand-year legs in there and move them three times a day and you get the hoof impact turning over knocking the dead matter into the ground and just kind of speeding up the cycle of things we rotate cattle in a migratory fashion around the ranch you have animals in here all the time well there's going to be grazing grazing grazing grazing and this will never have time to recover you try to preserve everything you have and we put all our cattle in the huge herds so that you're resting 95% of the ranch at one time you can see the field is getting worse and worse too because there's been such a severe drought we haven't had enough moisture a drought came in 2002 on the last three years have been exceptionally dry crowd is one of the elements that we always have to work with sooner or later will come in other ways as a cleansing phenomena that takes a week makes you stronger if you have an extended drought you need to reduce animal numbers in order to reduce stress on the land and so we're running at about half capacity now you start thinking how am I going to survive and the only way that we could figure out how to survive was to build a business that was diversified and used the natural amenities and resources that existed on a ranch and things that we were good at and we like doing sea grace did this she was working all right let's call the leather shops start off as a project for repairing equipment and it's always been a craft that our family has used on ranching so over time we started making bags and purses and and belts things like that when I was a kid in Mexico there was a saddle maker that would travel to all the ranches in our area and he would spend two or three months working there and I would go down as a small kid and just hang out with him and so I think that's where I first got interested in it it started off just a little corner in office was for leather work and now it's evolved into taking up probably two-thirds of the saddle house that's donna headquarters and it's just growing and are expanding and it's cool because you're reaching out into people that probably don't have a whole lot of experience or really like knowledge about ranching and you're kind of bridging that gap if they buy back from us they're gonna be linked to our website they're gonna see what we do and they're gonna feel like they have a better understanding for what we do and are kind of supporting that cause as well I think that's why modern ranching is a diversified business and it's not just about livestock and land it's about engaging people in the process we have workshops we have hunting we have concerts we have art shows it's a lot of land and a lot of projects so it has to be all hands on that that just gets you extorted so is everything's square is everything else will be just freehand to me it's been really important to teach my kids they may take it up to may not but at least if they know the basics on how to heart leather and how to make it look beautiful how to make it functional it's really important to me just because it's something that I've done all my life and it's also just part of what we do on a ranch as times have changed my dad has changed he grew up in a very traditional style ranching he knows that side but he also knows a new way of ranching so he's kind of had to adapt and we as a family have come together and really taken this challenge and turned it into something new and different it's cool because you see how you can kind of flower out of nothing it's not just about cattle but it's about the land the people you bring in and what you can fully produce on the ranch bison seasons ahead and there's a huge number details that all have to be prepared we have to get these Buffalo in air we there's no choice

Channel: HISTORY

Views: 138,235

Rating: 4.9544659 out of 5

Keywords: history, history channel, history shows, history channel shows, ranchlands, watch ranchlands, ranching, herding, cattle, branding, bison, duke phillips, san luis valley, colorado, PLob1mZcVWOajNl3_AC5JvpZW0HMAwukxV

Id: PdN_MErEpTA

Length: 10min 28sec (628 seconds)

Published: Tue May 17 2016