468 Black Spring Road , Fort Sumner, NM 88119(Debaca County)

This ranch is located south of Fort Sumner on the Pecos River. It includes the following acreages:14,908+ Deeded Acres, 13,151+ State Lease Acres = 28,059+ Total Acres. This ranch comprises a variety range in the terrain, going from flat country, to rolling hills and to large sub-irrigated flats along the Pecos River. The amazing, and beneficial, aspect of this ranch is the ten and a half miles of Pecos River winding through the ranch. The ranch has large sub-irrigated flats on both sides of the river insuring some green grass most of the time. These flats have been grubbed of the salt cedar and other invasive plants to help cut down on water usage of undesirable plants. As you would expect with the varying terrain, come lots of different types of grasses: Blue and black Grama, Galleta, Purple three-awn and others in the upper country. The sub-irrigated flats have giant Sacaton, alkali Sacaton, some Grama, Drop seed, Love grass and many other varieties. The ranch has approximately 10 miles of the Pecos River running through the ranch. This stretch of river is a critical habitat for the blunt nose shiner and endangered species of minnow. Because of this, the Interstate Streams Commission has purchased upstream water rights and pump water into the river to keep this part of the river flowing to maintain the minnow habitat. Therefore, the river will have water in it at all times. The pastures along the river have an abundant supply of water for the cattle and a large investment in excess of 20 miles of pipeline with electric submersible and solar submersible pumps has been made to adequately supply water to the many storage tanks and drinkers on the ranch. In addition, the Means ranch has many dirt tanks that are spread across the ranch. There are seven wells located on the ranch ranging for 20 deep to 235 deep. With eleven pastures and traps this is a cowmans dream; easy to work and easy to move cattle around. The ranch has assorted working pens located around the ranch facilitating branding or working small bunches without having to move cattle to the two main working facilities. There are two main sets of working facilities; one located at the headquarters and the other on the north end of the ranch west of the river. Both of these facilities are easily accessed from a gravel improved county road and have the capability to load semi-trucks. There are two homes at the main headquarters. Fences are all in excellent shape and the roads are maintained and in good shape. These flats are also home to many species of wildlife. Not only Mule Deer, Blue Quail, Antelope, Bobcats; but is on the southern flyway and is the stop over point for Canadian Geese, Sand Hill Crane, and many different species of duck. In this arid part of the Southwest, there will always be times of drought; but, because of the sub-irrigated flats along the Pecos River, there will always be green grass. This ranch was previously owned by the same family for three generations and then sold to a very respected ranching family who continued to improve to the ranch. One of the newest and best improvements has been the spraying of mesquite on the NM State Lease land. You cannot imagine the difference between the sprayed and non-sprayed portions of the ranch! The volume of grass in unbelievable. You need to come view this ranch, if only to see what can be accomplished by good stewardship to the land.