SEEKING THE BALANCED RANCH STORY BY GARY HUBBELL, ALC COURTESY OF THE REALTORS® LAND INSTITUTE
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HILE COLORADO IS KNOWN FOR ITS WORLD-CLASS SKI AREAS, fly-fishing, elk hunting, mountain biking, and music festivals, it’s also home to hundreds of producing cattle ranches that contribute mightily to the state’s economy.
While states at lower elevations may have self-contained cattle operations, where all ranching operations occur on the same property, Colorado is a different story, with multiple properties necessary to form a “balanced” ranch. The ideal combination is a productive home ranch at a lower elevation that has ample sunshine, excellent water rights, a good set of working corrals, adequate housing and shop buildings, and, most of all, productive hayfields that are capable of producing high-quality mountain hay. Secondly, the ranch needs transitional grazing lands for spring and fall pasture, as summer pastures are often not ready for grazing until mid- to late-June. Finally, as spring pastures are grazed off, a balanced ranch needs high-country grazing land. This can be in one of several forms—either in the form of a grazing permit on either Bureau of Land Management (BLM) or U.S. Forest Service (USFS) lands or on deeded private ground.
