Utah Rancher Darrell Holden

Welcome to the Cattleman’s Corner.

I’m Brian Hale, sitting in for the late Howard Hale, as we continue his legacy of speaking with cattlemen and women from around the globe. Gelbvieh and Balancer cattle are well known throughout the beef industry for their maternal strengths and superior growth. With attributes such as more pounds of calf weaned, added fertility, greater cow herd longevity and heavier carcass weights, just to name a few, Gelbvieh and Balancer offer genetics that work for the commercial cattle business.

Visit Gelbvieh.org Here’s co-host David Woodruff with our guest Darrell Holden. How many cow-calf pairs do you end up with most of the time? Me and Angie run about 20 pairs. It depends on the year.

Right now we’re down to 12. We’ve only got a little operation, and we just run where we can. Because of the foothill country, the grass turns pretty quick.

Salt Lake is the closest big town to us, and we always watch the weather. When they say it’s going to be 85 in Salt Lake, we know it’s going to be 100 out here. When they say it’s going to be 45 in the winter, we know it’s going to be 25 out here.

We’re cold, and our growing seasons are shorter, and then we have the heat that comes. That old desert grass is awesome in May and into June, but by the first of July it’s turning. There’s still a lot of feed value in it, it’s just not as palatable for those cows.

That’s why we try to not hammer it. My biggest issue is I try to rest every spring, especially on private leases. You put cattle in the same pasture spring after spring, that grass never has a chance to go to seed and have that rest period that it needs in the spring especially.

You can really hurt a pasture, that’s when you see the brush come back. Utah rancher Darrell Holden on today’s Cattleman’s Corner. There’s more on the web at cattlemanscorner.com That’s going to do it for today’s report.

Thanks again for listening, and may God bless. I’m Brian Hale.