Working Ranch Magazine - Index

Working Ranch Magazine - magazine - Index

don’t go together very well.
Take my advice. Get rid of the snakey,
wild critters in your herd. And do whatever
you can to condition your cattle to
accept a handler’s influence horseback
or afoot. It’s the right thing to do, for
the sake of the folks that have to handle
that critter down the line.
WILD CATTLE, WILD COWBOYS
Some cowpunchers, including
myself, wouldn’t hesitate to pour a
cup of coffee and sit down to share a
story or two about gathering wild cattle.
The experienced hands will tell
you right off the bat, there’s wild cows
and then there’s “wild” cows.
The first variety is a domestic critter
that basically has a mean streak and
doesn’t want to be messed with. It
could be a steer, heifer, bull or cow living
in amongst a herd of relatively
docile cattle. We’d see a semi-wild cow
like that every now and again that
would stash her calf under a big ol’
sagebrush out in the desert and walk
four miles down-country to the water
tank in the middle of the night. She
will allow herself to be gathered, and
messed with a little bit, but if you go to
pressure her too much, she’ll cut and
run, but not before giving you a parting
gift like blowing snot all over your
stirrup or hooking your horse on the
way by. Oh yeah, she’s teaching her
calf to have the same negative opinion
of cowpunchers and buckaroos.
Get rid of the snakey critters in the herd, teach your
cows how to behave themselves, and then go out there
and enjoy the cowboy experience. You’ll be glad you did.
You have to respect a cagey ol’ snot that will stash her calf in the sagebrush four miles from the
nearest windmill and come for water only on days that have the letter U in them. But by golly,
she better give it up come the gather, and not sneak off into the toolies on a little vacation. The
worst offense would be if she spied the cowboys comin’ and led a little jag of otherwise manageable
cows down the draw and out of sight. Ooohhh, that would be a bad choice, indeed.
The second variety is a truly wild
cow, one that has left the sanctity of
the herd for whatever reason, and is no
longer considered domestic. She, (or he
JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2008 | WORKING RANCH | 77