Home to a few onion sheds, a grocery store and a handful of hometown restaurants, every Wednesday the town becomes Grand Central Station for nearly every cattle operation within 150 miles.

A hundred head of recently weaned calves wandered the downtown streets of Boise, Idaho, on the first cold morning of October. Steam rolled off their backs, a mass of tipped-over trash cans behind them. A tightly packed alley of wandering souls staring blankly into a haze of flashlights and headlights. A cacophony of chaos filled with the rumble of lowing calves rising into the crisp morning air.

Over the past decade, bovine congestive heart failure (BCHF) has emerged as one of the biggest threats to the health and productivity of cattle on feed.

“Be prepared” is a motto to live by, especially during calving season. With that in mind, here are a few items that are essential to have on hand, plus some best-practice tips to consider.