Americans have always been on the go, and the same can be said of the country’s cattle herds lately.

Stocker operators have a tough job in the beef business. A tough, but rewarding experience working through cattle with varied amounts of risk, hoping to add pounds with limited inputs – if Mother Nature is in good humor and provides needed forages for added weight gain.

You continue to see it in articles and hear about it at meetings … Bovine Viral Diarrhea (BVD). They say the virus causes all kinds of problems and costs ranchers of money.

In my nine years of range management graduate studies at three major universities in the West, never did I encounter the term “stock density.” That’s pretty amazing considering that we now acknowledge stock density as one of the most important tools in grazing management.

A $1 investment today can turn into two $20s during a grazing season – without additional pasture or cattle. How? Simply by using implants in calves.

As ruminants, cattle eat a lot of forage in a short time then chew the cud and process the feed more thoroughly. They have preferences in forage plants and certain behavioral patterns when grazing.

I am an irregular American – only sort of human, a black sheep, you could say. My detractors would lump me in with the loafers, deadbeats, drunks, gamblers, hoboes and tramps. Yes, it’s true, I have to admit that I have always belonged to that lower class of people known as “fall calvers.” There, I said it. Do those of you who calve your cows in the springtime think less of me now? I thought so. Because the vast majority of cattlemen in this country calve their cows in the spring, those of us who calve in the fall are discriminated against, victimized and looked down upon by those smug ranchers who think they are superior just because they calve in blizzards and don’t have to watch calvy heifers during the holidays.

It is hard to believe, but turnout time is here. There is no better feeling for a cattle producer and his cattle when the gates are opened and the cattle are turned loose to graze for the summer. For cattle producers, it truly is the most wonderful time of the year.

Normally when I get a letter or email from someone who has “seen themselves” in my column, I write back, apologize, swear I’ll try to do better and promise, as a penance, to bathe their Pekingese. This does not include animal rights loonies, the Association for Political Correctness or the ACLU drum bangers.

Dennis and Linda Brooks have raised beef cattle on 114 acres west of Hillsborough, North Carolina, since acquiring the land in 1978. Now a unique partnership will keep it that way.The Eno River Association, Orange County’s Lands Legacy Program, and the N.C. Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP), have agreed to buy two conservation easements to protect the farm on Ben Johnson Road and the nearby streams.