As the sun rises over the Cow Creek, Jim Miller has already checked on the calves, made a few phone calls and is putting hay in the feeder for the heifers.
Jim and his wife Shirley run a 300-head cow/calf operation. The steer calves are shipped to Kansas in the fall where they are eventually marketed to Japan.
With calves getting shipped to Japan, Jim is meticulous in recording when the calves are born, tagged and inoculated.
Jim said he feels fortunate to have found the niche market in Japan early on, thanks to his connection with Doug Laue in Kansas.
The heifer calves are handpicked to replace cows and then the rest of the heifer calves are taken to a stock show sale in January at Centennial Livestock Auction, Ft. Collins, CO or sold private treaty.
For Jim, the ranching life is more than making a living, it is a lifestyle.
He rode horses for years to check on the cows at night during calving season, but now drives a Polaris Ranger.
“I never thought I would give up riding horses out to check,” Jim says, but the convenience of the Ranger has won him over —especially when he is checking on cows when the weather is 20 below zero or there is a raging blizzard.
“We had two new calves last night,” Jim said. The weather is nice and his cows are comfortable. When the weather is cooperating, they check on the cows at 10 p.m., 2 a.m., and 6 a.m. When the weather is nasty, they check every two hours.
When it is cold, Jim and Shirley want to make sure the calves are staying warm enough to survive. Some just need colostrum to get them up and moving, others need to be hauled into the heat.
Jim has found some calves that he thought had frozen to death, “But if you get some milk into them and get them warmed up, lots of times they will come around,” Jim said.
The cows and heifers are separated so Jim can pay special attention to the heifers at night.
He moves them into a corral where the calving shed is located at night and lets them out in the morning.
One heifer calved the night before, but didn’t have any problems.
For Jim, that is good news. Most of his heifers have not had difficulty this year.
Several years ago, one of his heifers had a really hard time delivering and ended up having a caesarian to deliver the calf.
Jim and Shirley decided that pelvic measuring the heifers might be a good management tool to incorporate, so they checked into it and it has been a successful aid, Jim said. That, coupled with low birth weight bulls has produced less stress at calving time for the heifers.
He buys the bulls to breed the heifers, but uses artificial insemination for the cows.
One of the reasons Jim uses artificial insemination is to produce club calves which is another way to market calves and also to produce replacement females for the herd.
“We sell some calves privately and then we are part of a sale with other folks in Laramie in October,” Jim said.
Club calves are used for 4-H and FFA (Future Farmers of America) members’ projects.
Jim said around 100 of his cows are artificially inseminated and the rest are naturally serviced by bulls.
With 300 head of cows and heifers, Jim always hopes for a 100 percent calf crop but more realistically gets around a 97- 98 percent calf crop.”
Jim has been a rancher his whole life. He spent much of his former years in Torrington, then his family moved to Colorado.
When he graduated from high school he returned to Torrington to go to college.
A friendship with Glen Knotwell brought Jim to the Platte Valley to hunt for a bear and there he met Shirley.
They married in 1972.
“I always say I came up here, got a bear and a wife,” Jim laughs.
After moving to the Valley, Jim and his wife worked for the XH Ranch and for the Silver Spur Ranch.
Eventually they went to work for Shirley’s grandmother, Nina Huston. “We probably worked for her and the ranch for about 20 years.”
While working for Nina Huston, Shirley and Jim started building their own herd of cows. “When we left there we became partners with Marion, Shirley’s mom.”
Jim and Shirley continue to help Dick Barkhurst, Marion’s husband and Shirley’s dad, who runs his own herd of cows at his place near Encampment. Jim and Shirley’s youngest daughter Chloe Gilbert helps with her Grandpa’s cows too.
The ranching tradition continues with their children, who now are all adults with families of their own. Their oldest daughter, Lael Knotwell, organizes and coordinates the steer and heifer show every Mother’s Day and husband Guy works at the Silver Spur Ranch. Cody and wife Georgia Miller and Colton and wife Robyn Miller also work for the Silver Spur Ranch, daughter Chloe and husband Duane Gilbert have their own operation.
The Miller’s enjoy the day to day operation of the ranch, feel very blessed to have been able to raise their children there and now have their grandchildren be an integral part of the action. Jim and Shirley feel they are good stewards of the land and animals that God has entrusted them with and want to continue helping to produce food to feed the world.
Back story
Jim Miller and his wife Shirley, are cattle producers who live on the lower end of the Huston Ranch.
Shirley (Barkhurst) Miller was raised in the house they still live in.
Jim and Shirley started their cattle operation while working for Nina Huston and then later partnered with Marion Barkhurst.
The ranch was named Grace Meadows Ranch. Jim and Shirley named it that for two reasons. The first reason is because that is Marion’s middle name. The second reason was “By the grace of God, we will make it work.”
Marion passed away Sept. 30, 2013.
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