Category: Ruminating with RealAg

Spring is an exciting — and busy — time of year. For some ranchers calving is just coming to a close; for others it may be just starting. There are fences to fix, water systems to install and repair, grazing plans to finalize and cattle to run through the squeeze. Often in the hectic pace... Read More

There is nothing quite like having the exact right tool at the exact right time to get a job done. Many ranchers out on pasture have experienced the importance of that moment when they are looking for their favourite hammer or nut driver, only to realize that it's missing from the toolbox, lost to the... Read More

There have been many memes created around the adventure that working cattle with family members can hold. Whether that's husband and wife, or kids with their parents, the things said while working cattle are often things that cannot be spoken outside of the corral. This was Dylan Biggs' experience growing up working cattle with his... Read More

The day-to-day on a family ranch often means juggling many pieces in order to get the job done and raise the chances of making a profit. The Luthi Ranch, a 6th-generation family enterprise in western Wyoming, is no exception. On this episode of Ruminating with RealAg, Bryan Luthi joins host Amber Bell to discuss the... Read More

Access to high quality feed and water make for a good ranching location. They allow producers to raise productive livestock, setting up the ranch to turn a profit. Those same things are attractive to wildlife as well, and whether it is an ungulate, such as a deer or moose, or the predators that follow them,... Read More

Manure has been used as fertilizer for a very long time; however, with the advent of fewer mixed farms and access to commercial fertilizer, which is easier to transport and often easier to apply, nearly all farmers have moved away from using manure as the primary source of fertilizer on their operations. That being said,... Read More

How often is it said that farming is a lifestyle? Sometimes it is a hard one, it's sometimes frustrating, but often also rewarding in more ways than just money. While it is a lifestyle, farms and ranches are also businesses with high-stakes financial decisions required on a regular basis. With cattle prices hitting record highs,... Read More

Cover crops are all the not-quite-so-new rage and the process of integrating them into current agricultural systems has been gaining ground (pun intended). Seeding multiple species in a field can do some fantastic things for the land, such as enhance water holding capacity, improve soil biodiversity, provide added resistance to pests and disease, and improve... Read More

Although ranching comes with a whole host of risks, vaccinations have the potential to lower that risk substantially. While vaccines may not save every cow in a herd from disease, it does give producers the chance to protect the majority of the herd from several diseases that cause sickness and even death. In this Ruminating... Read More

Words such as planned, rotational, management intensive and adaptive multi-paddock have all been used to describe grazing methods that mimic the movement of wildlife that would have grazed the Prairies many years ago. Some of these are also words that Kelly Sidoryk uses to describe her family's grazing strategies. Sidoryk and her family had initially... Read More