CAREY, Idaho — Brittany Dalton grew up on a farm at Carey, Idaho, with 4 sisters and 2 brothers. Her mother was a stay-at-home mom and her dad was an outfitter. When she was little, her dad fed cows with draft teams.

When she was a high school senior her mom was in a car accident, then passed away after being paralyzed for 10 months. Brittany kept the farm running and took care of 2 younger sisters while her dad kept the outfitting business going.

“I stayed close to home, attending College of Southern Idaho, so I could come home and help,” Brittany said.

“Every cowgirl’s dream is to marry a cowboy and that came true for me 10 years ago. Kyle and I fell in love when we met, and were married 7 months later,” she said.

Like many young married couples, they had no money, but she had 4 cows.

“We stayed in Carey where we purchased 25 more cows. Kyle worked for an electrician that summer while I helped Dad with the farm and outfitting business,” Brittany said.

“A year later we were expecting twins. We moved to the Deseret Ranch in Utah where Kyle cowboyed. Then Kyle’s dad passed away and we realized we needed to come back closer to family.”

They moved back to Carey where Kyle worked for a rancher while Brittany tended the twins, a boy and a girl.

“We built our cow herd over the next few years with the twins in tow. While Kyle day-worked for other ranchers, the twins and I fixed fence, hauled water, moved cows, and tried to keep things going,”she said.

She was also part-time bookkeeper for a local welding shop.

They gradually grew their herd to 350 cows, with hard work and determination. The cows go to summer pasture in the nearby mountains. Now with 3 kids who still hike with mom in the mountains to fix fence and haul water, Brittany works part-time as a bookkeeper for a seed potato grower 15 miles away.

“They are great to work around my schedule, but it’s challenging when they’re shipping potatoes in the spring and we’re calving and branding,” Brittany said. “In the fall when they’re harvesting we are gathering cattle off the mountains and trying to make everything work.”

The twins (BlevinsLee “Buckle” and Dallie) are 8 now, and little brother Rusty is 3. They all go with Brittany to fix fence or ride to move cattle.

Kyle helps when he can, but has to make some outside money.

Brittany uses horses for feeding, and raises her own draft horses. The kids love the horses and driving the teams.

“A few years ago Kyle quit working for the rancher he was helping and became self-employed building saddles,” she said. “At that time we had about 170 cows and then nearly doubled our herd the next year.”

She and Kyle own no land or haying equipment.

“My old high school science teacher helps us a lot. He has a beautiful place on the outskirts of Carey and no cattle so he told us to bring our cows and rent it from him. He has corrals so this is where we work our cattle,” Brittany said.

They lease all the ground they use for pasture. One of the motivations for continuing to build and improve the cow herd is to have something for their kids if they decide to come back to help with the ranch after they grow up.

“We hope to eventually have our own genetics—a herd with one iron, rather than a bunch we put together. When you start out you buy cows from here, there and everywhere and then have to cull.”

It takes a while to build something good from the best of what you bought, she said.

“Every year have a nice set of replacement heifers, with our iron on them, out of our cows and bred to our bulls.

Little by little, you see improvement, and build on that, she said.