A film by Bruno Mangas

September 25, 2023

"It's the most rewarding job on the ranch, calving out heifers. There’s nothing cooler than calving out a newborn baby calf. To help that heifer, who I know intimately, have been watching her for two years, get to help her deliver her calf. Maybe it was a tough pull, but we got it done and she got up and went to her mom, and then a week later you see that calf running around the pasture with all the other calves bounding around, there’s nothing cooler than that. I take a lot of pride in calving out heifers.”

Meet Mike, apprentice manager on the Frying Pan Ranch in Texas. In this video, Mike shares some of his background—from his childhood growing up on a small hobby farm in rural Massachusetts, to his years as an Army Ranger in the U.S. military, and his eventual discovery of and passion for ranching in the arid west.