Triplets born to an 8-year-old Angus cow on Jan. 26 were the subject of a story in the Hastings Tribune. “The cow was still about two weeks from delivery time, so it was a complete surprise when we went out and saw the calves already cleaned up and ready to nurse,” said Ron Duffy of Guide Rock. The three heifers weighed about 50 pounds each, compared with 65-80 pounds for most of Duffy’s newborn calves. The sire is a purebred Angus bull; it was the cow’s first multiple birth, after five previous single calves. As calving season progresses, Duffy and his partner, cousin Dennis Duffy, are keeping an eye out for a cow that has lost its calf to help with the nursing.

Calving was also a topic addressed in the North Platte Telegraph, which ran a January feature on the Rundback family. When they started ranching on Brown Road south of North Platte 13 years ago, there were no homes nearby. Now, subdivisions back right up to their pastures. During calving season, Wayne and Dona Rundback keep their purebred Angus cows in pens close to the barn – just in case. In the cold of winter, they’ll check the calves every hour – right through the night – but Wayne prefers this to working in an office. “Where else can I work with my wife and son just about every day?” asks Wayne. Still, they need to supplement their income with off-ranch jobs: Dona working part-time in North Platte and Wayne building fences and helping ranchers prepare bulls for sale.

The Loess Canyons south of the Platte River is the first area selected for a pilot project to control cedar trees and return the land to natural, warm-season, high-forage grasses, reports the North Platte Bulletin. “Where we used to run 200 head of cattle, now we run 80 because of cedar tree encroachment,” said Box Elder Canyon rancher Gordon Gosnell, who has lived in the area since 1941. The Loess Canyon area was chosen because it is a large area without many fields or roads. It covers southeast Lincoln, northeast Frontier and southwest Dawson counties. Besides cedar-tree control, the project also looks at getting ranchers to change their grazing techniques. Gosnell now uses rotational grazing, and he received government funding for 5,000 feet of water pipe. Noticing that cattle tend to overgraze near water supplies, he installed more water tanks, reducing the potential for erosion.

A half-century of service to the cattle industry was recognized in January when Francis McDonald of Phillips received the Hamilton-York County Cattlemen’s Longtime Feeder Award. The Aurora News-Register reports that the 75-year-old McDonald has decided to stick with farmer/feeding for the long haul. At an early age he developed a formula that has allowed him to survive and flourish since 1956. The secret: diversify across corn, pasture and cattle. And use your cattle as a down payment to buy more land. From an initial herd of 49 head, McDonald built it up to 250 by 1967. He then started selling cattle in order to buy land. When cattle prices were high, he would buy land. When cattle prices were low, he bought cattle. When the value of two fed steers equaled the price of an acre of land, it was time to buy another quarter section. “You have to outwit the market. You have to buy at the right price and sell at the right price. I used cattle as a down payment every time we bought a piece of ground. It was just like the land was given to me.” He started with 80 acres bought jointly with his brother in 1956, and now owns 1,280 acres with his two sons.