Paintrock Angus Ranch Wyoming
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he original ranch near Hyattville, Wyoming was homesteaded in the late 1800s by Asa Shinn Mercer, on Paintrock Creek. “We are right under Cloud Peak, in the Bighorn Mountains,” says Martin Mercer. The main ranch lies in the badlands, where soil color goes from red to white, then into trees and then rocks above timberline. The cattle run from the badlands to the top, which is about 10,000 feet. The first Angus cows were purchased about 60 years ago. “My grandfather had been raising beans. We farm about 1,000 acres and when beans went to $32 a bag he got enough money to buy some registered black cows. My grandfather, my father Tom and his three brothers started having a production sale and took bulls to Denver and all over the country,” says Mercer. “My folks were named Outstanding Seedstock Producer of the year twice, by the Wyoming Beef Cattle Improvement Association. We’ve always just tried to produce good bulls for commercial cattlemen — putting more pounds on the ground in their calf crops,” he says. Tom and his three brothers were in partnership until the early 1970’s when they decided to go their separate ways. “My father began selling bulls by private treaty. We sold bulls privately until our first production sale at the ranch in 1998. We’ve been selling about 200 head of bulls annually in our sale, ever since,” he says. They also take bulls to the Midland bull test every year, to see how they compare with other sires. The goals of Paintrock are to balance and optimize traits they feel are important — carcass, growth, calving ease and excellent maternal traits. “For a long time we had 200 commercial cows as well as purebreds, and ran some of those at 12,000 feet. We tried to keep those crossbred, since high altitude disease affected them less. Some of the breeds we tried were Salers, Braunvieh and Amerifax.” After trying several breeds along with Angus, they decided to concentrate on Angus. On average they run 500 to 600 cows, and 150 of those are red Angus. Their cows calve from late January through early March at the home ranch and
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start out on pastures in the spring in the badlands, then go to the mountain for summer grazing. “We get them bred before we take them to pasture. Some are trailed and some are hauled, depending on which pastures we’re going to. We only get three to four inches of annual precipitation at the base of the mountain, and about 15 inches up on the mountain. It’s an arid climate, and a long way to water for a lot of the cows. We pride ourselves on cattle that can travel and take care of themselves in this kind of country,” he says. When they come down off the mountain in the fall, they go into the badlands until the end of December or early January. “Then they come home and we start feeding and
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calving. We haven’t figured out a way to completely do away with feeding, but the cattle graze most of the year,” says Mercer. “We struggle just like everyone else to find the best-doing cattle. We try new bloodlines, but every now and then some of those don’t work out. This business is influenced by cattle that come from regions where it’s easier for cattle to make it, and some can’t do it in range conditions. We chose not to be a closed herd, so we’ve been influenced here and there and occasionally find ourselves with some that are off track,” says Mercer. “Due to the high elevation, we’ve been PAP testing our cattle. The best thing in high country is to start with a cowherd that’s already been acclimated to these conditions. We don’t want to sell anyone a bull that’s a high PAPer. Even though the bull may not die of brisket disease, he may pass on the trait into that herd and that would be harmful in the long run,” he explains. They calve in February to have cows calved out and bred before they go to summer range on BLM and Forest Service. We want them bred before they leave, and if you are trailing to summer pasture you can’t trail young baby calves. We tried fall calving for awhile, but it was hard to get cows to breed up and the calves looked terrible all winter. It wasn’t the answer, in our climate. When you look at all these new ways to do things, the old timers did many things the way they did for a reason. It worked. We’ve changed a few things here, then can’t wait to get back to where we were before! The old timers had learned, by trial and error, what worked. I guess we learn as we go!” —- by Heather Smith Thomas Livestock Market Digest