Livestock

The tale of a broken heart — and other parts

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Essay by Walt Gasson

Livestock – February 2009 – Colorado Central Magazine

SHE WAS TALL and dark and lovely. Athletic, but with curves in all the right places. Solid — not an ounce of extra weight anywhere. Her eyes were a deep brown, and I was infatuated from the first time I saw her.

True, she completely ignored me and her breath smelled like grass hay, not to mention the fact that her ears were bigger than my feet, but I was smitten from the moment Steve Kilpatrick walked her out of the horse trailer. Ah, Silas, mule of my heart, mule of my dreams, why did it have to end so sadly between us?

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Pack animals return to active duty

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Brief by Central Staff

Livestock – June 2006 – Colorado Central Magazine

Mules and donkeys will soon rejoin the United States Army, and to start the process, 31 soldiers from the 10th Mountain Division spent most of a week near Powell, Wyo., learning how to work with pack animals so they can be used in high and rugged Afghanistan.

In the original World War II days of the 10th, when it was based at Camp Hale north of Leadville, mules were part of the team. The outfit is now based at Fort Drum, N.Y., but has many soldiers in Afghanistan.

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A day that could happen only in Central Colorado

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Letter from Keith Gotschall

Livestock – July 2005 – Colorado Central Magazine

The following email was sent to our daughter Columbine, who, as many of you may know, moved to Bend, Oregon, last fall. She forwarded it to us, and we were not only amused by the content, we were also convinced that this was a day that could only happen in Central Colorado, so we got permission to reprint it here.

Dear Columbine,

Today has been absolutely bizarre. Here’s how it started:

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Adoption from the wild

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Article by Sunnie Sacks

Livestock – November 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine

AMY MORRISON decided to adopt and train a wild burro as a learning project for her job. At work, she supervises inmates who are training animals at the Colorado Department of Corrections in Cañon City. But Amy started training horses on her parents’ ranch outside of Guffey when she was only 12 years old.

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Abandoned llamas get rounded up on Western Slope

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Brief by Central Staff

Livestock – July 2004 – Colorado Central Magazine

Every once in a while, a range cow manages to escape the herd and take up the feral life around here, and elsewhere in the West, there are herds of wild burros and horses — domestic animals gone wild.

So perhaps it shouldn’t have come as a surprise that llamas could act the same way.

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Making mules the modern way

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Brief by Central Staff

Livestock – July 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

They’re not making mules the old-fashioned way any more, at least not at the University of Idaho in Moscow, where researchers announced in May that they had cloned a mule.

The foal, named “Idaho Gem,” was born on May 4, and is the first member of the horse family to be cloned.

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Jumpin’ Jack Flash: 19??-2002

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Column by Hal Walter

Livestock – February 2003 – Colorado Central Magazine

JUMPIN’ JACK FLASH moved on to that high desert in the sky during the Winter Solstice, 2002. After years of caring for Jack in his old age and declining health, I had often wondered how it would end. But I had no idea he was leading me to such a mystical experience.

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Animal medicine for a nostalgic writer

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Column by Hal Walter

Livestock – December 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

THE SMELL OF BURNING BONE drifted out of the old burro’s mouth as the wire saw, a thin piece of abrasive metal floss with metal rings on each end, ground its way through a tooth deep in the back of Jumpin’ Jack’s mouth. The veterinarian leaned into his business, and when the wire finally cut through the tooth, he nearly pitched over backwards with the released momentum. A chunk of tooth, about the size of the tip of my pinky, lay nearby on the ground. It had been hindering Jack’s ability to chew.

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Complete absurdity at the Colorado State Fair

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Column by Hal Walter

Livestock – October 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

A few days before the Colorado State Fair Mule and Donkey Show, I decided to practice for an event called Run, Ride and Lead.

This race involves an all-out sprint across an arena to where your animal stands; you mount and ride back across the arena, and then dismount and lead the animal back across again, presumably at a run. Several arenas have recently sprung up in my neighborhood and one neighbor couple gave me permission to use their new arena for practice.

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Park County bison are a nuisance, but they’re a tax break, t

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Brief by Central Staff

Livestock – October 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

Those with homes where the buffalo roam in Park County are still looking for a solution to their problems, although the county commissioners are trying.

The problem is that bison ranches abut residential subdivisions, and the buffalo often ignore fences, even if they’re in good repair (and sometimes they aren’t).

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Hay and the Stock Market

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Column by Hal Walter

Livestock – July 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

If there’s anything I don’t like about my small-time dealings in the stock market — the livestock market — it’s dealing with hay.

The basics are bad enough. The stuff is heavy and getting it, especially a decent supply of it, to my place is problematic. I drive to where the hay is, and in my case the empty rig is always going downhill. When I get to wherever I’m buying the hay, I have to unstack it, then restack it in my truck or trailer.

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They want a home where the bison don’t roam

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Brief by Central Staff

Livestock – May 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine

The song says “Oh give me a home, where the buffalo roam,” but that isn’t how people feel at the Hartsel Springs Ranch subdivision in South Park. They’d prefer that a neighbor’s bison herd stayed on his property, rather than breaking through fences.

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The Problem with Cows

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Essay by Chris Frasier

Livestock – February 1999 – Colorado Central Magazine

COWS SURE ARE DUMB. At least, that’s what I’ve been reading lately in the popular press. A man who was convicted last year in Oregon for shooting his neighbor’s cows defended himself with the idea that cows aren’t smart enough to control their grazing.

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Reindeer, Yaks, and a Ranching Revolution

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Article by George Sibley

Livestock – December 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine

THIS STARTED OUT to be a story about reindeer, for the satisfaction of my own curiosity. As often happens, it turned into something else, and something more.

For the last couple of years, driving east from Gunnison on Highway 50, I’ve been noticing exotic-looking animals off to the south, just east of Doyleville. Not deer, which are common along that whole stretch of road, but what looked like … eight tiny reindeer, or maybe a dozen or so?

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Another Perspective on Natural Beef

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Sidebar by Ed Quillen

Livestock – September 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine

IF YOU EAT BEEF and you’re concerned about your health, then residual antibiotics and growth hormones should be the least of your worries.

Instead, you should purchase your beef from a properly inspected facility or from a store that gets all its meat from one. And once you’re home, you should focus on refrigeration, sanitary habits, and proper cooking, because that’s where the biggest dangers to your health can creep in.

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Betting the Ranch: Saguache cattleman Mel Coleman

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Article by Steve Voynick

Livestock – September 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine

THE COLEMAN RANCH in Saguache is one of the West’s most-visited working cattle ranches. Regular guests include newspaper and magazine writers, television crews, supermarket meat buyers, and executives from across the U.S. and Japan, along with range management experts, proponents of natural foods, and environmentalists.

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Riding the Higher Range by Steve Voynick

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Review by Ed Quillen

Livestock – June 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine

Riding the Higher Range – The Story of Colorado’s Coleman Ranch and Coleman Natural Beef
by Stephen M. Voynick
Published in 1998 by Glenn Melvin Coleman
Distributed by Big Horn Booksellers, Fort Collins
ISBN 0-9662331-0-7

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Sensitive, New-Age Texas Wimps in the Saddle

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Essay by Ed Quillen

Livestock – March 1998 – Colorado Central Magazine

CATTLEMEN ARE SUPPOSED to be brave enough to go grizzly hunting with a willow switch, mean enough to tackle a buzz saw bare-handed, and tougher than boot leather. And that goes double if they’re from Texas. But it turns out that Lone Star cowboys are a bunch of wimps who can be reduced to quivering terror by an afternoon television talk show.

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Women on board at Custer Stockgrowers Association

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Brief by Central Staff

Livestock – September 1997 – Colorado Central Magazine

Women on Board at Custer Stockgrowers

They may have been prescient back in 1945 when ranchers in the Wet Mountain Valley got together and called their group the Custer County Stockgrowers’ Association rather than the Stockmen’s Association.

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