Montana ranchers pay it forward

Rene Brown, a co-organizer of Montana Ranchers Paying it Forward, closes a gate after a donated cow was unloaded and herded into a holding pen at JS Livestock.

Brown and Alisha Burcham, both of Chinook, organized a local effort to get replacement heifers and cows donated from area producers to ranchers in South Dakota where thousands of cattle died when an early snowstorm struck the northwestern part of that state in early October. Thirty-three producers, from across the Hi-Line, north to the Canadian border and south through the Bear Paw Mountains, donated 45 young and mature breeding cows to replenish the depleted, and some nearly wiped-out, herds.

The Havre area group is working with Heifers for South Dakota and North Central RC&D of South Dakota to distribute the cows where they are most needed. Other people in the area, like Jeff Solomon who donated the use of his stockyard, have donated time, services and money to help with the effort.

Read more about this story in the Farm and Ranch insert Dec. 4.