Beautiful ranch produces beautiful bulls
If Ben Cartwright from “Bonanza” and Crystal Carrington from “Dynasty” built a ranch together, it would probably resemble the Rocking R Cattle Co. in Hayden.
Owners Ron and Shelley Rosenberger have built a breathtaking home, not only for themselves, but also for Shelley’s horses and Ron’s registered black angus cattle. If reincarnation were real, we could all hope to come back as one of Shelley’s horses; classy stalls, an automatic, heated watering system in the winter, a large shower with a car wash sprayer and heater so we wouldn’t freeze our tails off, regular brushings, foot care, and a special eucalyptus mist sprayed from the ceiling every 20 minutes to keep flies from the barn.
“When we bought this place there was nothing on it,” said Ron Rosenberger. “We built the house, the barn and the cattle pens.”
They certainly didn’t skimp. Walking through the front door of the barn is a pleasant surprise. Instead of cow dung, straw and shivering cold, it’s warm with a couch and coffee table on a cow hide rug that begs a visitor to sit and relax. The cowboy décor in the room creates a homey, western feel that leaves the impression that Hoss or Little Jo might walk through the door any minute. But that’s where the similarities to Bonanza stops. The back wall is a semicircle with waist-to-ceiling windows that look directly into an indoor corral. To the right of the spacious lounge area is a bar complete with a keg of beer and a very willing bartender, usually a family member or Ron himself.
“My buddies came over, and we had to vaccinate cows today, so I bought a keg,” said Ron. A little farther on is a full kitchen with a laundry room area, so smelly work clothes never have to find their way to the house.
The back part of the barn with its 25-foot ceiling has a grain room, stacked hay, a corral and individual pens for mama’s with new calves. Two babies, only a day old, laid nestled in the fresh straw, as their mothers hovered protectively. The new mothers and calves stay in the special pens for 48 hours, then are free to roam with the other cattle on the 40 acres behind the barn. Out back are cattle pens with a wide covered walkway the entire length of them.
But, what the Rocking R is gaining the most notoriety for is its prize-winning bulls. They produce breeding heifers and herd bulls used by ranchers throughout the region, and they’re walking away with some pretty impressive trophies at sales and competitions.
“At the Cowman’s Classic they have two divisions for the angus, Growth and Calving-ease,” said Ron. “The Calving-ease they can’t weigh more than 85 pounds at birth and there’s a criteria they have to meet. We had the Grand Champion Calving-ease bull and the Grand Champion Growth bull. I’ve actually won the Grand Champion Calving-ease two times before, but I’ve never won the Growth. This year we were able to win both, so that was fun.”
The Cowman’s Classic Bull Show and Sale is the last Monday and Tuesday of February every year. The winning ranch gets their name engraved on the traveling trophy, which they can display for the next year. Ranchers come from Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana to purchase quality bulls from producers like Rocking R. Most of these bulls range in price from $3,000 to $5,000. However, according to Ron, the top bull at the Cowman’s Classic two years ago sold for $20,000.
“The mothers of the bulls I sold at the sale were artificially inseminated from the top sires in the nation,” said Ron. “I’ve also bought embryos at different auctions, and I have a guy in Deer Park who transferred the embryos into a commercial herd in Colville, so I had nine embryo calves.”
A rancher can purchase a semen straw from one of the top bulls in the country for about $30. He can then harvest the embryo between that bull and a top cow of his choosing, and have it placed in his own cow who acts as a surrogate mother and end up with a champion bloodline calf. There’s about a 50 percent chance that it will take and a calf will be born.
“Counting the semen costs and insemination fee, for fifty bucks you can breed your cows to one of the best bulls in America,” said Ron.
Ron started his cattle breeding business from the ground up, learning as he went along from his victories and mistakes. “I personally enjoy everything that goes along with the cattle business. I like driving my tractor and putting up hay.”
And if he were given a choice between a Hawaiian vacation or putting up hay, “I’d rather put up hay.”