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Corriente’ Calf’s Curious Eye

Corriente' Calf's Curious Eye
Corriente' Calf's Curious Eye

Corriente’ Calf’s Curious Eye

Hey Brown Eyes …. I always wonder what these guys are thinking. Humans are scary things to them but we provide food. Our vehicles show up and food magically appears to them. In the winter when the trucks feed the herd, the sound of the rig brings them trotting across the snowy prairie.

This is one of our calves born this year. It’s horns still pretty small, a month old baby. Adults will have pretty good sized horns for such a small beed of cattle. They definitely know how to use those horns. The breed routinely bully much larger Angus around with them.

The Spanish breed Corriente’ where first shipped to the America’s in 1493. The smaller breed was easier to transport, feed/ care for. They tough as heck athletes each and every one. Their meat contains about 1/2 the fat that our modern hybridized breeds. They require a lot less water adapting easily to sparse range. In other words, they pretty much take care of themselves. As a beef producer, your upfront costs are way lower. OF course these are sport cattle. Thusly we are not raising them for beef but as roping cows to train cowboys.

We’ve had Corriente’ for a decade. Their worst characteristic is that they go where they want. Doesn’t matter if there is a 4 wire barbed wire fence between them/where they want to go. They work their way through fences as if the barrier wasn’t there. Fortunately, they like it here. Hanging out by the water sources is the attraction. Water get’s scarce 3 miles out from our homestead. So they stick around mostly bulls excluded. Bulls go where their hormones tell them to. Since those bulls are small, no one want’s them to breed with a purebred Angus, you won’t get as much money lol.

Title: Corriente’ Calf’s Curious Eye

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Split Eared Fawn with Mom

Split Eared Fawn with Mom
Split Eared Fawn with Mom

Split Eared Fawn with Mom

This picture postcard capture in the frost and snow shows a mom and interesting son (fawn) . The very distinctive young one has both a split left (his) ear and UNIBROW lolol. That with the little black chin goatee beard has totally ID’d him as “Mr. Uniibrow” to me. 

I’ll watch ‘Mr Unibrow” over the years as he grows up. He’s a member of a group that stay close to my homestead using a stock tank in our corral to water. I will be a star in years to come. He’s about 7 months old now. He’s distinctive enough I’ll have images of him from now through 4 years anyway assuming he survives. 

There are many smaller groups of deer that separate from a bigger herd that dispersed in the spring. Mid to late winter shortly after the rut (December) the smaller herds start to join up and by spring I have several herds of 30 or 40 animals running about in different parts of the ranch. Each herd geographically controlled by water availability and location. They don’t care about ranch boundaries so I share some of them with other local boundary ranches. 

This is a 1200mm telephoto shot. Getting this close without a long lens is usually an accident in the winter. It’s a lot harder to get close to the deer when you can’t get off the road lolol. 

Location: Bliss Dinosaur Ranch, Wyoming/Montana borderlands. 

Title: Split Eared Fawn with Mom