6 Montana Ranch Chores That Fill October

Stock trailers start lining up outside Billings in early October for the Northern International Livestock Exposition (NILE).

It runs October 9 through 17 this year.

Back home, Montana ranchers still have a full list of chores lined up to do before winter.

These are the Montana ranch chores that fill October.

Note: This is general information, not legal advice. Property laws and liability rules are subject to change.

1. Trailing Cattle off the Mountain

A Montana rancher’s October starts on the mountain, getting cattle down off national forest range before the permit season ends.

Nobody gets an extension.

Every grazing permit on national forest land sets what the U.S. Forest Service calls a “season of use,” the exact window cattle are allowed on that allotment.

A rancher who leaves pairs on the mountain after that window closes is out of compliance with the permit.

Gathering strays out of the timber can take days, not hours, especially once the first snow pushes cattle into cover nobody can see into.

Horseback still beats a four-wheeler in that kind of country, so the gather usually means several long days in the saddle before anyone counts heads at the bottom.

2. Weaning the Calves

Many ranchers wean their spring calves sometime in October, once the calves are close to seven months old.

The cows need a break before winter sets in.

It’s a loud few days.

Calves pace the fence line and bawl for their mothers for two or three days straight.

Cows answer back from wherever they’re penned, sometimes from a pasture away.

Then it stops.

Once the noise dies down, the calves settle onto a new feed bunk and show the weight gain from a summer on grass.

3. Checking Cows for Pregnancy

By October, cow herds go through the chute for pregnancy checks.

Ranchers pulled their bulls out of the breeding pasture back in late summer, months before this month’s chute work.

A vet or a technician checks each cow by hand or with an ultrasound.

Whoever runs the chute marks every open cow, one that didn’t settle in calf this year, before she leaves it.

That’s expensive to skip.

An open cow eats the same hay as a bred one all winter, then shows up with nothing to sell in the spring.

Many ranchers sort her onto a truck instead.

Ranchers plan bull removal, weaning, and pregnancy checks off the same fall calendar every year.

4. Hauling Calves to Town

The sale barn becomes the center of gravity for ranchers each October, once their weaned calves are ready to haul to town.

Lewistown Livestock Auction’s report from last fall called its first Tuesday in October the season’s first big sale of feeder calves.

The auction’s report put that week’s run at 1,000 head of calves.

Trucks line up before daylight.

It’s a long drive to the barn for some of them.

5. Testing This Year’s Hay

Ranchers pull hay samples off this year’s stacks before feeding a single bale, not after.

Montana State University Extension’s beef program says now, before winter feeding starts, is the time to get hay analyzed and build a feeding plan around it.

Guessing gets expensive by February.

A test tells a rancher the actual protein and energy in this year’s hay, not what last year’s stack happened to run.

The winter ration gets built on the current numbers instead of a guess.

Lab results can take anywhere from two days to two weeks to come back.

Send the sample in October, and there’s still time to adjust the ration before the herd is fully dependent on hay.

6. Walking the Fence Line

Ranches get every fence line walked each fall, checking posts, wire, and gates before snow makes half of it impossible to see.

Montana law backs up the urgency.

Under state law, a rancher who gets written notice that a barbed-wire fence is down has to fix it.

Ignore that notice, and the rancher owes the value of any livestock hurt by the fence.

That’s not a small bill.

A cow or horse tangled in down wire can mean a vet call, a dead animal, or a neighbor’s animal on the wrong side of the line.

October is the last easy month to walk every mile before drifts bury the low spots.

A gate wired shut back in July can rust solid by December.

Ranchers swap in a fresh latch now, while the ground is still soft enough to reset a post.

Fielding Hunter Access Requests

Ranch roads see a different kind of fall traffic once hunting season opens.

Archery season runs from Sept. 5 through Oct. 18, and Montana’s general rifle season for deer and elk opens Oct. 24, per Fish, Wildlife & Parks’ season calendar.

A rancher whose land borders public ground spends part of October fielding permission requests.

Gates hunters left open, trucks parked across a cattle trail, and a stranger who needs directions to the property line all show up on the same week as everything else.

Some hunters hear no.

A rancher who’s out gathering cattle or hauling hay doesn’t always have time to stop and explain why.

Billings and the NILE

The state’s biggest agricultural gathering lands in the middle of the ranch calendar every October.

The NILE started in 1967 with livestock and horse shows plus a rodeo at the Public Auction Yards in Billings.

It now calls itself one of the largest agricultural events in the Northwest.

It’s a full house.

More than 2,000 area fourth graders come through its agricultural education program every year, according to the NILE’s program materials.

That’s on top of the ranch rodeo, the horse sales, and the junior livestock shows that fill the week.