Ranch Operations
Cattle ranching has been an integral part of the ranch beginning with the earliest settlers to the present. The ranch interior is fenced and cross-fenced into numerous pastures and traps with each pasture/trap having its own water supply. This allows for the year round rotation of the cowherd from summer on the upper mesas to winters along the river bottoms. The normal cowherd consists of up to 500 mother cows, replacement heifers and bulls.
Water Rights
The ranch is well watered for livestock, wildlife and fire protection. It includes a 70,000 gallon water storage facility on the high point of the ranch that is connected to 3 wells. In addition, there is live water in the 9 miles of the Purgatoire River, the 5 miles of Chacuaco Canyon, and other streams, making this one of the best-watered ranches in Las Animas County.
Conservation Value
“JE Canyon is like having your own private wilderness,” said Renee Rondeau, Colorado Natural Heritage Program (CNHP). The biological diversity of the ranch is well documented in a bio blitz conducted in June 2010 by CNHP and the Denver Botanic Gardens, where 865 species of flora & fauna were identified. These findings were published in “JE Canyon Bioblitz” and can be purchased through Blurb Books. The ranch was also featured in John Fielder’s “Ranches of Colorado” and in “Colorado: Lost Places and Forgotten Words.”
In 2000, a conservation easement was placed on about half of the eastern portion of the ranch with Colorado Cattlemen’s Agricultural Land Trust. The easement limits the number of additional homesites to five, but retains the normal recreational, hunting and agricultural operations on this portion of the ranch. The remaining half within the Purgatoire River Canyons is free from any conservation easement.