Class News

VIEW ALL CLASS NEWS

Today's Featured Biography

Gerald Williams

For area ranchers, “preg-checking” — or pregnancy checking — plays a big part in predicting how much money their herds are going to bring in for the year.

“It rates us,” said Buellton-based rancher Jerry Williams.

“Our paycheck is basically once a year,” he added.

For the Williams family, months of back-breaking work, along with good winter and spring weather, have resulted in strong pregnancy rates this year. In the ranching world, that translates into success, provided the livestock market is favorable.

“It’s been a good year,” said Williams, who runs his ranch and Williams Livestock Company with a lot of help from family and friends.

Through the process of pregnancy testing and weaning — removing young calves from their mothers for the first time — the Williams family found that 97 percent of its cows are pregnant this year. One of its herds yielded a rare 100-percent pregnancy rate, and another missed that mark by one cow.

“It’s management. It’s Mother Nature. A little bit of everything goes into it,” Williams said. “We have a really staunch health program for our cattle, and that plays a big part in success.”

Commuters zipping up and down Highway 101 over the past couple of months might have seen the Williams family on the job, working their 700 mother cows and 1,000 stocker cattle yearlings on the 25,000 acres they manage in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties.

Riding home-grown horses, the family went into its fields over the past two months to push each herd into holding pens.

With expert horsemanship, the ranchers divided the young calves from their mothers. They moved the calves through pens into a waiting semitrailer, then transported them to a holding area near the family home just west of Buellton on Highway 246.

The mothers remained in the pens to undergo the pregnancy screening process. With lightning speed and efficiency, the ranchers corralled the cows in a portable hydraulic chute. The family’s longtime veterinarian, Gary Evans of Los Osos, then reached up each animal’s rectum and past the cervix to feel for fetuses.

Jerry Williams tracked each cow individually, by its tagged number. Each cow also received vaccinations, a solution to keep worms and flies away, and a quick examination for any other health issues. The entire process took an average of a minute or less per animal.

After testing, the pregnant cows were returned to the fields to continue grazing. They will give birth in September and October.

The Williams family will sell a majority of the weaned calves to ranchers they have dealt with for years — many this year are on their way to a ranch in Colorado. The remaining calves will return to new grazing areas after spending 45 days receiving extra attention as they learn to survive without their mothers.

“It’s nerve wracking until you get going,” Williams said. “It’s a reflection on me as a herd manager, so it feels good to have this kind of success.”

Copyright 2010 Santa Maria Times. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

.Posted in Local on Saturday, August 14, 2010 10:53 pm | Tags:

VIEW ALL BIOGRAPHIES

U.S. Armed Forces

Class Poll

Featured Links

Visit Other Classes