Tri-State Neighbor: South Dakota Farm Newspaper

About a dozen horse trailers pull into a 400-acre green pasture with rolling hills and grazing Angus cows with calves by their sides.

Title: Branding

Date:

The Weller Ranch near Kadoka, S.D., branded calves May 4. View the slide show here.

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Forty adults and kids as young as 7 get on their horses and head out to round up the cattle at the Weller Ranch north of Kadoka, S.D.

They bring the 100 cow/calf pairs down to a corral made of cattle panels. Five or six men on horseback sort the cows out and leave just the calves in the pen.

Roundup and sorting calves are just the first steps in the branding and vaccinating process on Bill and Carrie Weller's ranch.

Those 40 people were a few more than normal Bill Weller said. The Kadoka school district did not of have school May 4 due to teacher inservice, so more kids than usual came out to help.

“We have about 20 different neighbors. They know the routine. You don't have to tell them twice,” Bill said. “They know how to do it, so it's a deal where you just turn them loose and your neighbors take care of you.”

The Wellers met while at South Dakota State University. Bill was a transfer student after attending college in Torrington, Wyo., for a couple years. Carrie, a Marion, S.D., native, graduated with a bachelor's degree in animal science from SDSU in 1990.

Today, the Wellers ranch within a half mile of Bill's parents, W.O. and Jean Weller. Bill and Carrie have two young sons, Gage, 6, and Tagg, 2 and a half.

“I grew up right here,” Bill said. “This ranch that I live on I bought from my uncle and he's had it for quite awhile and it borders my dad's. Dad is to the south and to the west of here. It works out really good.”

Bill says when they move cattle, a lot of times they do not have to haul them. Instead, they can just trail them from one place to the next.

Bill and Carrie run about 100 Angus cow/calf pairs, along with horses. They host a bull sale in December. This year they will hold their third annual gelding sale Aug. 3 at the rodeo grounds in Kadoka, where they will offer about 100 horses.

They also plant about 250 acres to oats and alfalfa. Milo will make up the rest of their farmground this year.

Bill recognizes that many people like to run their cattle through a chute. But, he says branding is quick.

“You can work a lot of calves in a short amount of time,” he said. “If you have a good crew, it just doesn't take very long.”

Instead of digging a fire pit and dealing with replenishing the fire with wood and worrying about the wind like they have in the past, the Wellers use propane now to heat the branding irons.

“One thing about propane is it's consistent and it stays hot. If you dig a pit and wood, you're always fighting it. It gets to be a pain,” Bill said.

Bill and Carrie's brand is a W spear on the right rib. Bill says they set up for branding to make for the easiest flow.

On this particular day, the wind blew at about 15 mph. They had just had a rain shower the night before so they did not have to deal with dust.

Those ranchers doing the branding set up the propane and branding irons to the north of the corral. Various neighbors on horseback went in the corral and roped the calves.

They brought the lassoed calves out of the corral where a group of people had lined up to hold onto the calves for branding. Bill said the way they set things up meant they did not need to step over the animal and made everything flow more smoothly.

Bill realizes there are advantages and disadvantages to branding. When selling to other ranches, he says it is nice to brand them because then the other ranches know where they came from and that they were home-raised.

“We don't have any cattle thieves in our country, but it's just for your neighbors' reference if you've got one out or this or that,” Bill said. “They know whose it is.”

Besides branding May 4, the Wellers were also administering spring vaccinations using Triangle 4 plus a presponse and a blackleg shot.

Bill would like to run more cows and had about 200 head until the drought really hit the area. This year so far has not been bad compared to last year when they had a hailstorm beat down the pastures followed by heat and no rain.

“My place got real short, but you learn from experience,” he said.

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