Tough Work, Tight Margins: How Cattle Branding Is Evolving in Nebraska
On the Burdick Ranch, nestled in Nebraska’s Sandhills, spring cattle branding is an annual act of community. The sheer scale of gathering, roping, vaccinating, and marking 900 calves with the family brand requires the work of roughly 60 volunteers, primarily family members and other cattle ranchers from the area. But it also requires hired help: local high school wrestlers who are paid for the rough, dirty task of toppling the calves and pinning them to the ground to be branded.
Arthur, 6, the youngest of the family, leads a dinner prayer the night before the Burdicks brand and vaccinate 900 calves with the help of about 70 community members on the Burdick Ranch in Cherry County, Nebraska.
Byron Burdick, 41, who manages operations for his family’s midsize ranch, remembers a time when hiring help wasn’t necessary, before the steady departure of young people from Cherry County in pursuit of city jobs and opportunities. “When I was little, nobody paid anybody,” he recalled. Neighbors would bring their children to wrestle and hold the calves. “Now we don’t have the families.”
Reese, a hired hand at the Burdick Ranch, checks cattle and refills salt and mineral supplements for the ranch’s grass-fed cattle.
From left, Loralea Frank, Reese, and Trevor, 16, prepare vaccinations.
Ranch hands Bayley, 14, and Caden Asencio
Branding season represents the year’s most significant expense for the Burdicks. The wages for the wrestlers, combined with the cost of the post-branding lunch, totals about $6,000—equivalent to the price of about four heifers.
