BURNS, Ore. — Mark and Susan Doverspike and their son Steven run a cow-calf and yearling operation on a ranch that has been in the family for 128 years.

“Steven makes the fifth generation and we have a sixth generation coming on,” said Susan Doverspike.

“My great-great-grandfather and his two sons came to California from the East, then rode horseback through Oregon to Washington,” she said. “They picked out places near Burns and Lakeview to settle. Our side of the family ended up in Burns.”

The ranch sells some calves in the fall and holds some to sell as yearlings in July when the price is usually better, Mark Doverspike said. The cattle are Hereford-Angus crosses.

The region has good summer grass but winters are long. Native meadow grass is baled for winter feed, and regrowth provides fall pasture. In March the cattle go to sagebrush hills for calving, a healthier environment for the calves than wet meadows.

In late April the cattle go to Bureau of Land Management pastures that weren’t grazed the year before.

“We rotate between pastures every other year and are allowed to stock these pastures a little heavier because there’s more feed with a combination of the new grass and the old,” said Steven Doverspike.

“After that the cattle go up into forest pastures until late fall. Then we use a mountain ranch with native meadows where we rake-bunch hay for fall feed,” he said.

“When we rake-bunch hay into piles it preserves the protein level,” Susan said. “It’s more like a bale of hay than a windrow and not as subject to weathering.”

The cattle have the pastures and rake-bunch piles eaten by the time it snows, she said.

“Down at Burns we generally get about 2 feet of snow,” said Steven. “On the higher mountains the fences are covered. Usually we are feeding hay from December until late April.”

In spring, the yearlings are sent to one of their ranches near Riley, about 40 miles west of Burns, to graze and are ready to market in July. The good feed and genetics make it work.

“Susan does a great job with the genetics, picking out bulls that are growthy with good carcass and maternal traits,” said Mark. Most of the calves are crossbred.

It’s an interesting challenge, selecting genetics to fit environmental conditions.

“In this high desert we can’t have cows too big, or too high on milk production or they won’t stay in the herd,” Susan said. They may raise big calves but won’t breed back.

“This is a harsh environment. Our range pastures are rated as about 15 acres per cow per month,” Steven said.

Cattle move from pasture to pasture to higher elevation as summer progresses. The ranch meadows are over 4,000 feet and the range pastures go up to 6,000 feet.

The calves are sold through niche markets such as Country Natural Beef.

“Our oldest son, Donald, works for Western Video Market and Shasta Livestock Auction, so he helps with the marketing,” Susan said. “Our youngest son, Daniel, went to college at Eastern Oregon University, majoring in ag business.”

The Doverspikes value education and experience.

“One of the rules Mom and Dad set up for us boys was that in order to come back to the ranch we had to get an education — bachelor’s degree or higher,” Steven said, “The second rule is that we have to go work for somebody else for at least two years, to see if we really want to come back to the ranch or have a job we like better someplace else.”

He worked for JBS Five Rivers Feeding Co. and brought back a lot of feeding knowledge and experience.

“We’ve tweaked our feeds, and tried different things to see if we can do a better job of feeding the calves when we wean them, until they are shipped,” he said.

It’s been beneficial to expand their horizons and take advantage of additional knowledge, they agreed.