Drop off date now set for February 8th in Elko

Ranchers show, tell what life is like back home on the range

Story and photos by Lydia Snow Feb 2, 2025

CLOVER VALLEY — As the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering tour bus passed through cattle-grazing wilderness, Jay Dalton of Dalton Ranch, whose family has worked as Nevada ranchers since 1892, shared old ranching lore.

As State Road 232 enters the Clover Valley area, it passes the ghost town of Boaz, he explained.

However, the earliest places settled were situated on the south end of the valley, while the north side was settled most recently, Dalton added.

The valley is the exclusive home of the Clover Valley speckled dace, an endangered tiny fish which may soon be delisted due to ranching conservation practices, Dalton noted.

"We're not a big outfit but we're one of the bigger small outfits," Dalton said of his Clover Valley ranch. "We sell the best and eat the rest,” he added.

Guests arrived at Brough Ranch, where husband and wife part-owners Jordan and Kari Brough were there to share their perspectives on ranch life.

Yellow prairies sat against the stark white of the snow-covered East Humboldt Range mountains. Herds of cattle grazed, drank from troughs, chomped clumps of hay and licked a frozen stream.

Jordan Brough explained how his grandfather, Ferris Brough, first came to the mountain slopes.

“After World War II, he didn't want to be a potato farmer in northern Utah. So, he came out and he settled the very last ranch in this valley,” he said. “It was what they could afford and that ranch is the driest ranch in the valley. He had a very good life, but it was a hard life.” 


Jordan Brough’s father, former County Commissioner Wilde Brough, found the one-family ranch wasn’t large enough for his family. So, Wilde and Ferris moved onto the current ranch site, which feeds off the fresh mountain waters of Steele Creek.

College sweethearts

Jordan Brough and Kari Brough went to school at Utah State University and married in 2011. Four years later, “we came back to the ranch after we got done with college and we decided to start selling beef to individual people,” Jordan Brough said.

Kari Brough said she found herself needing to carve out a place for her to run the ranch. “Instead of it being my husband's ranch or my in-laws’ ranch, they wanted me to be a part of it,” she said.


“It's very easy just to stay out here,” she said. “It's peaceful, it's quiet. Kind of reminds me of growing up.”

But she said there was more to do.

“Being part of this community is important and that's what Brough Ranch Beef has done for us — it has opened up a community opportunity where we can donate to the local sports teams or get out with the farmer’s market and meet people,” she noted.


Kari and Jordan’s daughter, Evalyn, attends Wells Elementary a few miles away, while their son, Chester, is homeschooled and helps out on the ranch.

“We do just whatever works for the kids,” Kari Brough said.


Raising cattle, caring for calves

So, what does the nitty-gritty of raising beef cattle look like? Around nine months after a calf is born, the ranchers separate calves from their mothers, a process known as weaning, Jordan Brough explained.

“Good stewards and good ranchers do everything they can to minimize stress on cattle at that time. There are a lot of bawling calves bellowing for their moms and a lot of wrecks happening around that time, because they're trying to break down fences to get back to each other. But after about three, four, five days, they calm down and then they're usually good on their own,” he said.

Right now, they are feeding the animals through the winter, he explained. As the winter feed cost is their biggest expense, the ranch is trying to conserve money at this time of year, he noted. Due to this year’s milder winter, they have not needed to feed the cattle as much.


“In the springtime, we cross our fingers that hopefully we have green grass. Because green grass comes with water that we got through the winter,” Jordan Brough said. “If we don't have any green grass, if it's bad enough, then we'll have to start selling cattle. That's the last thing we want to do, is sell cattle because of drought. But drought happens. That's what God has for us and that's just a cycle that goes on.”

The past few years haven't been bad.

“We've had a couple of really good years,” he said, pointing to the rows of hay bales stored at the edge of the ranch. “A lot of that will be kept till next year, trying to minimize cost.”


Jay Dalton compared this area with those having different ecologies, meaning different feeds for the cattle.


“We can't raise big framing corn machines like they do in Nebraska out here in this sort of environment,” Dalton said. “What happens is, if they can get enough of it in their guts, there is enough protein out there for them to survive and for them to maintain. The problem is, their guts aren't big enough to hold as much of this lower-quality forage that they really need to maintain, and that's why we have to feed every winter.”

The local grass-alfalfa mix hay contains around 18% to 20% protein, Jordan Brough said.

Grass-fed beef

“Percentage of protein is how many pounds of protein you can get into them. And so these lower-quality forages, you have to supplement with tubs or some alfalfa,” Dalton explained. “We can't really grow grain out west. You're in the middle of a high desert. You can raise a little bit of barley and make hay out of it — that's what we do. Some oats, alfalfa and this native meadow hay is what you can do out here, just because the growing season is so short and we're the driest state in the union as it is.”

Jordan Brough explained how they use a pre-mixed blend of corn, distillers and wheat to feed finishing cattle.

“A lot of you have probably heard the term grass-fed or grain-fed,” Kari Brough said. “It's a marketing term, because our cattle are grass-fed year-round. But we choose the last 90 to 120 days to finish them with a free choice of this grain. It's sweet. None of them are going to turn it down, because it is a sweet treat for them. It helps develop the fat and the marbling on these animals.”

Jordan Brough explained how he participates in a relatively newfound ranching technique — using drones to assist with cattle herding.

“In the fall time, when we're gathering off the mountain, I'll use my binoculars and I'll see something a couple miles away and I'll fly my drone up there and bring them down with my drone,” he said. 



Strong ranch history

“I think that's one thing that we do pride ourselves on, is that we do have the history and the generations of Brough ranch and that tradition means something to us,” Kari Brough said. “You'll never be able to replace a horse here — but being able to meld the two with innovation and history, that's what the new rising generation needs. We need to have that ability to progress and save time, save the energy from the horses, but still keep that tradition alive.”

According to Jordan Brough, around 30% of the ranch is wagyu cattle. However, they focus primarily on Angus cattle.

The beef from their commodity cattle ends up with brands such as True West Beef or Tyson — “whoever the highest bidder is,” Kari Brough said.


“As long as everybody can get their finger in the pie, the industry works,” Dalton said.

In order to sell individual pieces of beef to customers, they take the cattle to a USDA-certified butcher in Utah — the only time the animals leave the ranch, Kari Brough noted.

Samples

Inside Broughs’ house, guests tried beef jerky flavored with habanero peppers, black pepper and sea salt or soy sauce.

Kari Brough explained how they found themselves with surplus beef reserves in 2019. The result? An unexpected gold mine of jerky.

“COVID-19 hit, and I sold 2,000 pounds of ground beef in a day and a half. And then we kept selling out within 15 minutes, for the full year,” she said. Nowadays, the ranch sells out about once a month. She said she is thankful to have built such a strong connection with customers. And the ranch’s reach extends far beyond the Elko community — they have shipped jerky to all but around 15 states, including an overnight shipment to Hawaii, Kari Brough said. 

The Broughs’ neighbors, the Daltons, were originally scheduled to host the ranch tour that day. However, they had to pull out after 6-year-old Pyper Dalton died on Jan. 18, as they needed space to process the tragedy. So, the Broughs stepped up, throwing together their own ranch tour last-minute.

In Clover Valley, generosity flows like the waters of Steele Creek.

Brough Ranch and the other ranches around it fill the valley with a close-knit community.


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