BARUCH COLLEGE — At 4 a.m., the birds begin chirping dawn’s chorus, a wake-up call for cowboys and girls to buckle their belts and fix their cowboy hats for the day’s work ahead. Then, it’s routine to saddle the horses and make their way to the cattle. But rancher Michael Moon settles into his day at his desk, clocking onto his computer to access Vence, a virtual fencing management system. Moon locates and manages his herd from miles away, all the while enjoying that morning’s caffeine fix.
To Moon, the manager of Home Ranch in Clark, the conservation side of ranching is just as important as the production side. The family ranch runs around 220 Mother cows (cow-calf pairs) on 1,200 acres of private, expansive alpine landscape tucked into the Rocky Mountains at elevation gains that reach 12,180 feet in the Elk River Valley. Moon steers the agricultural practices of The Home Ranch to protect and conserve the land while managing cattle that will provide high-quality food for generations to come.
