Skip to content

Cochrane area ranchers in the midst of calving season

“Calving is fun, we do a lot of things on horseback still and you get to get out and see a new calf having his first suck and running and jumping and hiding in the grass, but it’s a lot of work regardless of the year,” Eklund said.

Starting in February and lasting typically until the end of April, ranchers will be working around the clock, engaging in one of the most critical aspects of the cattle industry – calving season.

According to the Canadian Cattlemen's Association, Canada produces about 1.55 million tonnes of beef a year and exports $3.1 billion worth of beef worldwide to 62 countries. Alberta accounts for about 40 per cent of all beef produced in the country.

Calving season is a critical economic aspect of the cattle industry, but is also a longstanding tradition in the region and boasts a rich history in the Cochrane area.

John Simpson and his family have been in the area for 65 years at their ranch, Simpson Ranching Limited in the Grand Valley. Their calving season is already off to a unique start after a cow gave birth to triplets for the first time in the ranch's history. He said the odds of a cow having triplets are one in 400,000.

“I’d never even heard of it before,” Simpson said.

The mom, known as X 31, is a 10 year-old-cow who in her lifetime has produced 12 calves.

The triplets, two bull calves weighing in at 91 pounds and a heifer weighing in at 79 pounds, were produced by X 31 on her own with no assistance.

“She had 240 pounds of calf in her,” Simpson said with a laugh. “She looked big, but she didn’t look that big.”

The triplets come in the midst of a busy calving season on the Simpson Ranch. A recent week alone saw 237 calves enter the world.

Simpson's Ranch is a cow-calf operation and is home to about 1,000 head of Hereford cattle. He said calving typically begins around Valentine’s Day and finishes up around the start of April, lasting for a total of about 52 days,

“Our calves are born earlier, we ween our calves earlier, we sell our calves earlier,” Simpson said. “That’s the way you make money in the cattle business – not to be doing it when everybody else is doing it.”

During calving season, the ranchers will be working non-stop looking after the cow-calf pairs.

It is a challenging industry, he said, and when calving season is in full swing, everyone on the ranch needs to be ready because, “when a cow is ready to have her calf, she has her calf.”

“It’s a 24/7, 365-day job,” Simpson said. “There’s always somebody out in the field at all times.”

Simpson said he has a great crew and praised ranch manager Ron Elliott for getting a great team together that takes pride in their work.

Fifth-generation rancher Travis Eklund of WineGlass Ranch began the calving season in mid-March. His ranch has been family-owned and operated for more than 130 years.

The ranch has always started calving around mid-March and the season lasts about two months. During the calving season, Eklund said he and his family spend 24 hours a day working with the cow-calf pairs. Each day brings new surprises and Eklund and his family are always out in the fields working with the cows raising premium Alberta beef.

“Calving is fun. We do a lot of things on horseback still and you get to get out and see a new calf having his first suck and running and jumping and hiding in the grass, but it’s a lot of work, regardless of the year,” Eklund said.

Calving season on the ranch typically lasts about 70 days.

In an ideal world, the goal of the ranch is to have a hands-off calving operation – outside of feeding, checking on and ear-tagging the calves.

“In a perfect world, every cow would have a calf on her own, she would claim the calf, the calf would suck, everybody is healthy, everybody is happy. The only thing we have to do is tag the calves so that we know which calf belongs to which cow. That never happens,” Eklund said, with a laugh.

The WineGlass Ranch has a large calving barn available for those cows who need a little help while birthing or need to be warmed up when it is cold outside. A large barnyard is also available in the case of a really bad storm that can hold around 300 cows. 

Heifers (first-time moms) will need more help and require checking in more often than experienced cows. These cows are checked on every three to four hours.

“It’s their first time. They’re more prone to difficulties calving,” Eklund said.

While most of the cow-calf pairs thrive on their own, Eklund said, about five to 10 per cent of the cowherd takes about 40 to 50 per cent of his time on the ranch during calving season.

Depending on the year, WineGlass Ranch can have more than 10 calves in the calving barn due to the cold, rejection from the mom or any other ordeal.

The ranch has seen two sets of twins this year so far. Twins are challenging because usually, the mom has the potential abandon one of the two calves. Eklund said they will work with the cow to bond to calves by placing them in the calving barn as soon as possible to ensure the cow looks after both calves.

“It’s a lot of long days, long hours, seven days a week for 70 or 80 days,” Eklund said. “By the time the end of May rolls around, everybody is tired and worn out, and if the weather is bad, it’s even worse.”

The hard work pays off when it comes time for auctions in October. Eklund said calf prices have been holding fairly flat over the last couple of years.

“It’s good because it hasn’t declined, but on the flip side it’s bad because it hasn’t increased either,” he said. “If it stays flat we’re reasonably happy with it because it could be worse.”

push icon
Be the first to read breaking stories. Enable push notifications on your device. Disable anytime.
No thanks