Circle Ranch is a 32,000-acre high-desert mountain ranch located in the Sierra Diablo (Devil Mountains) of Hudspeth County in far West Texas. Range and wildlife habitat conditions right now on the ranch are very encouraging, according to Chris Gill, who owns the ranch with his wife Laura and their four children.
“Overall, I’ve never seen the ranch look so good, so early. Our rains start at the first of July and run through the middle of September. Our growing season is really just starting now,” Gill told the Texas Farm Bureau (TFB) Radio Network. “We’ve had early rains and good rains, and it really looks great. We’re seeing tons of quail. The pronghorn, the bighorn, the elk and the deer, all of those are looking good.”
Gill is a strong proponent of biodiversity. He said a biodiverse plant community requires a biodiverse animal community.
“Biodiversity is really, really good for the desert, so that’s why we really try to push having as many kinds of wild animals as possible. And, then, the second thing that we do is we use cattle in what is called holistic planned grazing,” Gill said. “We bring those cattle in seasonally to kind of take care of the grass and plants that the wild animals don’t get around to. Those two things in combination are a huge reason that our place, we think, is looking so much better than it would, otherwise.”
Gill shares updates on his management efforts and philosophies, as well as photos from the ranch, in a weekly newsletter that can be subscribed to at www.circleranchtx.com.