By Brandi Buzzard on January 17, 2024
How Ranchers Get Through Bitter Winter Temperatures
Scenes From a Kansas Cattle Ranch
“Cows that are red, snow that is white,
This polar vortex is not a delight.”
If you aren’t a Billy Joel fan, I encourage you to listen to his song, “Scenes From an Italian Restaurant,” which is a masterclass in painting a lyrical picture for the listener. While I am nowhere near his prose genius, I hope my above retrofit of his words allows you to visualize what our life has entailed the past week as we battle a bitter polar vortex. Follow along as I describe “Scenes From a Kansas Cattle Ranch.”
Scene 1:
As I’ve mentioned in the past, our ranch has a 99 percent fall-calving herd, but you can always count on cows to calve during the most inconvenient and stressful weather. For instance, a baby heifer calf arriving to our mud room to be dried off, rubbed with towels and have a heater session on a -20°F day. The cow had done her best to get her dried off and keep her warm but that’s nearly impossible in weather like this. After some warming up and cowgirl cuddles, the calf was reunited with her mama and is doing as well as can be expected considering the circumstances.
Scene 2:
I rarely take a bath – I’m much more of a shower fan. Which is a good thing because our bathtub is a hot mess after serving as an Airbnb for an iced-over chicken waterer and a few frozen hoses. Fresh water is just as important in the winter as it is in the summer but it’s markedly more difficult to keep fresh water in front of animals during frigid winter. Thawing buckets, hoses and waterers indoors is much quicker than waiting on the sun to shine.
Scene 3:
Ideally, every vehicle and piece of machinery will start and operate as intended 100 percent of the time. But we don’t live in an ideal world. So, currently, the big silage wagon is sitting in the barnyard with a tire off because, just like the cow who calved at an inconvenient time, the 5-feet-wide tire goes flat when we need it most. Thankfully, the smaller, yet much older and delicate silage wagon, is functioning as needed!
Parked in the shed nearby are two feed trucks with four-wheel-drive and chains, because one of them got stuck in the snow while trying to feed hay to the cows on the same -20°F day. Have no fear, the other truck and I rushed to the rescue! And keeping a watchful eye over the entire scene is the skid loader that might start if it has 20 minutes to warm up, but that’s not always a guarantee. We rely heavily on these pieces of equipment and vehicles, because without them it would be virtually impossible to feed and care for our herd in this cold. It’s not a coincidence that engines are more finicky in the cold – just like mud, extreme cold makes things much more difficult.
Suffice it to say, a day or two with a temperature above 0°F will receive a warm welcome around our ranch (pun intended). We are immensely thankful for the moisture, that our home is still warm and dry and we are all safe but being able to walk outside without the fear of frostbite is quite appealing.
But you know what…? At least it’s not 95°F, there are no bugs and it’s not muddy!
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