'This is the Old West': Paid with a steak, bound by tradition, a Saturday was given up for branding day

MELVILLE — It takes community to brand, vaccinate, and castrate 160 calves.

“Hey bull! — Hey! — Yah! — Hey cows!”

Herding exclamations from 30 volunteer cowhands: Men, women and young adults, mixed with thunderous mooing.

Organized corral chaos prevailed at the Open Spear Ranch, a sprawling quarterhorse and cattle operation near Melville, between the human herders and their canine and horse helpers.

Early Saturday morning fulfilled an unwritten cowboy contract: Brand, vaccinate, castrate hundreds of calves, help a neighboring outfit.

Dennis McDonald, the 82-years-young Open Spear owner, paid his cadre with a biscuits and gravy breakfast, and a post-work porch-side grill-out worthy of skipping the white tablecloths at any haute cuisine steakhouse, bolstering his otherwise two-man crew for the day.

“It’s an opportunity for all the neighbors to get together,” McDonald said, while lugging around a hot iron and branding many calves himself.

McDonald claims he’s never had a sick day. His gallbladder was removed just a few weeks prior.

In 2025, McDonald was short on ropers. Not this year.

First, waving handkerchiefs and shouting, with assistance from cattle dogs, volunteers separated the juveniles from the adult cattle, which were vaccinated and sprayed for pests.

The adults were let into the pasture before the real hard work of roping, dragging calves out of the corral, hog-tieing, neutering and branding began.

“Everyone knows each other,” said Erwann Le Goff, a summer hand on the Greycliff Creek Ranch more than 40 miles away.

“When there’s branding, the ranch calls neighbors and friends. Pretty much everyone shows up.”

One enlistee swiftly neutered the males with a tool resembling a boxcutter before spraying on an antiseptic. Another held down the animal. A third or fourth person brought a red-hot iron brand from a propane-fired grill-like furnace, burning the historic spear symbol onto the right rib.

Smoke and flame emanated from the site before the calves were released into the surrounding pasture with the rest of the herd.

Le Goff, who arrived in the U.S. from France in May, got down and dirty calf-wrangling with the rest of the crew.

“This is maybe one of the last cultures to have deep roots in great morals and life values,” Le Goff said. “Everyone helps each other, like today. We all work together and have a nice time eating good food, enjoying life.”

Le Goff, who studied computer-generated visual effects for movies in Paris before city life became overwhelming, hopes to relocate to the U.S. soon. He returns to France at the end of July.

“People in my country think a lot of different things about the U.S.,” Le Goff said. “I was looking for a true experience, not just going to a guest ranch to do trail rides. I want to work, do real things.”

Former Big Timber resident Maddisen Eckearing, wearing a classic red checkered shirt and blue jeans, waved a handkerchief to get the cattle to move through the corral.

The Brigham Young University-Idaho pre-nursing student returned to Montana for the branding. A member of her church congregation told her about the event.

Big Timber native Scott Breding was also on hand. A lanky older man with a white handlebar mustache, the legendary Montana bull rider of 16 years and rodeo hall-of-famer roped from his horse like he was born on one.

Breding’s last time helping at an Open Spear Ranch branding was six years prior.

“A lot of these guys come back year after year,” he said. “It’s good to see all these folks again and reacquaint. I enjoy it out here.”

Breding’s longtime friend and fellow Sweet Grass County High School alumnus Dwayne McCanney, now a Carbon County resident but an Open Spear regular for 30 years, asked the 63-year-old pro not to risk an injury wrangling calves with the younger volunteers.

“You can supervise, help ‘em, but you don’t need to get on the ground,” McCanney yelled to Breding.

Becoming younger with each calf he wrestled, Breding carried on passing his skills to the next generation.

“Brandings around here are a pretty common time for different ranchers to come and help,” Greycliff teen Josh Brandstadt said. “It’s a great place to learn. I could wrap someone up in a rope and no one would get mad. Somehow people don’t really get hurt.”

After a cold call to McDonald led to her become a temporary Open Spear ranch worker during the summer of 2025, Celine Gintschel, 23, returned from her home in Germany for the branding day.

“I had a pretty good time last year,” said Gintschel, who got jammed between a rogue calf and the corral fencing minutes earlier. “I was really glad Dennis let me come back for two weeks.

“This would never happen in Germany. This is the Old West.”