Moving cattle to summer pasture is a family affair on many Mountain View County farms at this time of year, including for the award-winning Gano family's Chinook Country Farms in the Cremona area.
Gano family members and several helpers recently got together to move a group of 70 cow-calf pairs, and a couple of bulls, from the family farm to a section-size pasture partitioned off for intensive grazing in the Fallen Timber area.
"Every year we put them out to pasture in early June," said Troy Gano, son of Larry and Joy. "We put out the cows and the calves, and the bulls for a little while until we pull them mid-summer."
The cows moved this time were Red Angus-cross and the bulls were Charolais.
Once the animals are in the pasture they are checked on regularly throughout the summer, he said.
"You've got to keep an eye on them," he said, noting they are checked for such things as hoof rot and to make sure the bulls and cows are in good shape.
While the bulls are usually removed from the pasture mid-summer, the cows and calves usually stay in the pasture throughout the summer.
Chinook Country Farms was given the Century Farm Award by Mountain View County in 2014 and won the BMO Farm Family Award the same year.
(ON THE JOB-ON THE FARM is a regular Gazette feature on local farm families).
