Taylor Ranches has won the 2024 Environmental Stewardship Award from Alberta Beef Producers.
It’s an honour for the family, said Rob Taylor, who owns and operates the ranch with his wife Audrey and their children.
Rob, Audrey, and their two youngest children, Courtney and Clayton, live along the Milk River Ridge southwest of Warner. Two older children, Kyza and Katrina, work off farm.
Read Also
Farming Smarter receives financial boost from Alberta government for potato research
Farming Smarter near Lethbridge got a boost to its research equipment, thanks to the Alberta government’s increase in funding for research associations.
The Taylors manage about 850 commercial cows and more than 15,000 acres of land. Their cattle run on deeded land, Crown grazing land and an allotment with the Waldron Grazing Co-operative. They calve in May and June and background the calves. Most are sold in February.
The family grows most of their own feed, putting up about 800 acres of silage and greenfeed and a similar amount of hay at the home place.
“We try to run a low-cost operation with low input. That would be one of our big things,” said Taylor.
They also practice rotational grazing and move the cows every three weeks to a different field. They run cattle in groups of 250 in the summer.
“We find if we run in bigger bunches, they’re harder to water and harder to move,” he said.
About 200 cows are shipped to Milo in the summer and graze there until October. Other groups go to the Waldron Grazing Co-operative north of Pincher Creek.
“Out there, there’s a lot of big, open, south facing slopes. We winter a lot of cows up there. We’ll take cows there now, and then we’ll take some more cows there in November, after we wean here and we’ll graze out on those big open slopes right through to the end of March,” Taylor said.
Audrey’s parents bought some of the land now owned by the Taylors in 1983. After additional land purchases, they took over the operation and have been there for 23 years.
The family is conscious about preserving wildlife and they collaborate with the Alberta Conservation Association, Ducks Unlimited and Multiple Species at Risk. Their land is home to many species at risk, including small birds, ferruginous hawks and northern leopard frogs.
The Taylors worked with the Alberta Conservation Association and Ducks Unlimited to install water troughs; more than 70 in total. This keeps cattle out of dugouts, improves water quality and results in better herd health.
“We used to have horrible runs of calves getting sick in August. As soon as we troughed the water, it just stopped.”
Taylor said one of the secrets to being efficient is having good cattle.
“Your cattle work for you. They’re like employees of the ranch. They all bring in a calf that brings cash flow or they are cash flow.”
Family members also work well together, he added.
“We’re all pretty much cross-trained.”
He and Clayton do more work with feed and silage, and Clayton does most of the seeding. Audrey and Courtney run balers and other equipment. Clayton and Courtney both manage the calving, and Clayton does a lot of feeding for the backgrounder calves while Audrey takes care of the banking.
Courtney and Audrey both walk pens, and Audrey has probably put 4,000 kilometres on her quad checking cattle this year, said Taylor.
His two youngest children are devoted to the ranch, and this is important to him.
“It’s a dream come true. If we didn’t have support from the previous generation and the upcoming generations, we wouldn’t be where we are. We wouldn’t be in this position.”
Working with nature is a key principle.
“It’s been a commonsense thing to do, especially with more cattle and less help. I think one of the things people do is they make ranching hard. It doesn’t have to be hard,” because working with Mother Nature is more efficient and more profitable.
All the Taylors love animals, which play an integral role in their ranch. They use horses and dogs, mostly border collies, for many ranch duties.
“They’re like having 300 men,” said Taylor.
