NEWS
Wallowa.com
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
A17
Ellen Morris Bishop
Liza Jane McAlister clamps an ear-tag onto a Corriente heifer
that’s only a few hours old. “Last year I used orange tags for
boys and white tags for girls. This year I’ve gone with blue and
pink. It’s much easier to remember.”
Adele Schott gets ready to help her ranch team rope calves at the Chief Joseph Days Ranch Rodeo.
6 Ranch and mother-daughter ranching
By Ellen Morris Bishop
Wallowa County Chieftain
I
n 25 years of rais-
ing Corriente cattle on
their 6 Ranch, Liza Jane
McAlister and her daugh-
ter, Adele Schott, have never
had to pull a calf. Corrien-
te’s are lithe, athletic cat-
tle, descended from animals
brought to the Americas
by Spanish Conquistadors.
Their calves arrive as com-
pact small bundles, eas-
ily and properly delivered
head-fi rst into the world.
There has never been a need
to assist with the delivery, a
practice known as “pulling a
calf” that involves reaching
into the cow, slipping loops
of a fi ne-linked “pulling
chain” over the calf’s front
feet and assisting the birth
by slowly pulling the calf
out of its laboring mother.
Mature cows whose calves
are
breach-birthed—pre-
sented for delivery back-
wards or sideways—need
this help, as do many fi rst-
calf heifers. Pulling a calf is
exhausting, but an essential
process. Bovine midwifery
is not an easy job.
And it’s one that McAl-
ister and the 6 Ranch has
completely avoided for a
quarter of a century, along
with never calving in cold,
snowy, freezing weather.
“Our cows calve in May,”
McAlister said. “just like elk
do. Cows and their calves
have grass to eat, the ground
is warm, soft, and easy to
stand up on, and the weather
is usually pretty nice.”
This year is an exception.
Last fall, McAlister invested
her savings in 20 more Cor-
riente cows from a trusted
ranch in New Mexico. In
New Mexico, elk calve in
March when it begins to get
warm and grass greens-up.
So do Corrientes.
But now the New Mex-
ico bunch are in Wallowa
County, where March is
cold, snowy, wet, and pretty
inhospitable.
“I’ve been going out
every two hours at night
to check on them,” a tired
McAlister said. “There’s no
need to pull calves, but if
they are born in the snow
they might not be able to get
up. If it’s really cold they
could freeze to death, or if
they are delivered into a big
puddle, or their head is stuck
under a fence, they are going
to need help.”
So far, each of the cows
has moseyed into the barn
and delivered her calf on a
nice cozy bed of straw. No
worries.
Like many successful
ranches, the 6 Ranch does
things differently. Their Cor-
rientes are grass fed and hor-
mone-free. Adele is the 6th
generation of this ranching
family. It’s not that Schott
always knew she was des-
tined to be a rancher. “When
I was in high school,” she
said, “I was like a lot of kids
here. I thought I was too
big for Wallowa county. I
wanted to get out and see the
world and do other things.”
She spent her junior year
as an exchange student in
Argentina. “It was a dif-
ferent world,” she said. “It
was one I didn’t belong in.
It was urban. There were
people everywhere.” After
high school, she tried col-
lege.” It didn’t really fi t
me,” she said. “So I found
jobs, mostly day jobs, on
other ranches.” Then she
went to Culinary School.
And then she came home.
After spending a tough win-
ter and spring calving out
cows in six feet of more of
snow near Troy, Adele came
back to the 6 Ranch, along
with her new husband, Mark
Schott.
Like may younger ranch-
ers, Adele and Mark are
looking for a unique, and
more profi table niche, in
the ranching business. “The
most challenging thing
about ranching?” Adele said.
“It’s how to make money
doing the things I love.” The
Schotts have stepped away
from the traditional cow-
calf operation, and now buy
young steers in the spring
and raise them for grass-fed
beef. “To succeed in ranch-
ing today, you have to think
outside of the box,” she said.
“But doing what you love is
priceless.”
CASA advocates sworn in
Courtesy Photo/Erin Taggart
First-time Court Appointed Special Advocate, Michael Moore,
takes the oath of duty from the Circuit Court Judge, Wes
Williams in Wallowa County Circuit Court on March 13. CASA
volunteers advocate for abused or neglected children in court
or other settings. Joni Herb joined Moore as an advocate the
same day. According to Wallowa County CASA director. Erin
Taggart, the CASA team is now at 100 percent coverage, up
from 60 percent coverage in August. The addition of the two
will provide every child who comes into foster care in Wallowa
County their own personal advocate.
Since
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