Rod Hudson and his son Tim started calving in late January on the Hyatt Ranch off Tammany Lane and are now busy with the yearly, round-the-clock routine of checking calves. Sleeping in a trailer adjacent to the cow pasture, the father-son team trades off though the night, making sure there are no problems.
“I check 'til about midnight, and Tim checks 'em at 3 a.m.,” the elder Hudson said. “Then I get up at sunrise and check 'em again.”
“We're watching the heifers round the clock, because they're the ones that are most likely to have problems calving,” he said.
Hudson said his cows probably start calving a little earlier than those of most ranchers in the valley, because he's aiming for a little older animal at market. And while they've already got about 50 calves on the ground, the really busy time is yet to come.
“We're just now getting in the thick of things,” he said, “February and March are the big months, and by the first part of April we'll pretty much have it wrapped up.”
After ranching for 30 years, Hudson said calving is his favorite part of the year, despite the loss of sleep. And this year, so far, has been easy because of the milder-than-normal temperatures.
“The weather has been fantastic,” he said. “We had one night of snowing and blowing, but other than that it's been perfect. You never know what you're gonna get going into it, and it's always a challenge. What's really the worst is when it gets down below zero.”
Cattle ranchers aren't the only ones busy with animal midwifery this time of year; the valley's sheep herds are rapidly multiplying as well.
Dan Huggans has about 300 to 350 bred ewes in his flock on U.S. 93 south of Hamilton. Huggans, who's raised sheep for more than half a century in the Bitterroot, said this season's lambing started early than in years passed, with more than 100 lambs arriving between Christmas and the end of January.
“We had a buck get in with the ewes in July, which was kind of a mistake,” he said. “But it turned out to be good on account of the nice weather we've had.”
With a third of his lambs safely out of the womb and on the ground, Huggans is experiencing about a two-week lull before the next round of lambing begins. And while lambing season necessarily is punctuated by night after night of interrupted sleep, he's learned a few tricks over the years to make things easier.
“We start shearing early in the winter so the ewes will be more likely to come inside,” he said. “That way they're not dropping lambs out in the field in the cold weather.”
Early shearing, he said, also works well because the newborn lambs have an easier time finding their mother's teats. A third “good reason” for the winter haircut, he said, is it reduces the likelihood for the woolly ewe to smother the tiny lambs by laying down on them.
Huggans said he usually experiences about a 2 or 3 percent loss during lambing, which is a pretty good rate of success, a fact he attributes to having plenty of out buildings on his ranch.
“We're fortunate that we raised mink for years,” he said, “so we have a lot of sheds for lambing.”
Another trick that he's used in recent years, he said, is actually feeding the animals indoors.
“In previous years, we'd feed in the field and have to bring the lambs in to bond with their mother,” he said. “Now we're feeding them inside, so they lamb indoors day and night.”
Huggans said he looks forward to lambing season until it's here - then he can't wait for it to be over.
“By the end of this week, we'll be in the middle of it, and we'll all be missing a lot of sleep,” he said. “If you're lucky, you can get in some naps in the afternoon. The majority of it will be done in three weeks.”
Across the river from Huggans on Old Darby Road, sheep rancher Jim Ellingson is sleeping easy this time of year. His giant flock won't begin lambing until April - about two weeks later than last year. Ellingson purposely delayed the event after losing a number of sheep last season to cold, rainy weather.
“Last year was a sad thing, but you never know what the weather's gonna do,” he said. “I should be lambing in January - seems like I get better weather then.”
When lambing is in full swing, Ellingson said he and his crew run round-the clock shifts, checking the lambs in the field.
“I stay up all night, go to bed at 6 or 7 a.m. and get up at noon,” he said.
With many hundreds of bred ewes to check, he said he looks forward to the frantic pace of lambing season.
“It's exciting - especially since I'm never quite ready for it,” he said. “Once it hits, you think ‘man, this is too much.' There's a real concentrated period for about a week when you can't even see straight. But then when it's over you say ‘oh darn, I was just getting into it.'”
Ellingson said he probably loses about 5 percent of his lambs during the lambing period, and another 4 or 5 percent later due to predators, mostly coyotes.
“Sometimes coyotes are a really big deal,” he said. “Last year, we only lost about a couple dozen (lambs to coyotes), but the year before we lost 105. A lot of times they just come in and kill for the fun of it.”
Up Hamilton Heights Road, farmer Leon Stangl has three litters of piglets, ranging in age from three-and-a-half months to one week.
While Stangl, who also has milk cows, sheep, chickens and a turkey, said he's grateful for the mild weather this winter, the warmer temperatures have little effect on the survival rate of his hogs.
“We farrow them in the barn and put a heat lamp on them for the first couple weeks,” he said of his piglets, “so it doesn't make much difference what the weather's like outside.”
With colder-than-normal temperatures in the long-range forecast, including near zero on Friday night, the valley's ranchers may have their work cut out for them over the next few weeks. But between cups of coffee and afternoon cat naps, it's a sleep-deprived ritual few would trade for a good night's sleep.
Reporter Rod Daniel can be reached at 363-3300 or rdaniel@ravallirepublic.com
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