REAL Cowboys

MoKelly · Mar 10, 2021

deserteagle71 said:
You needed a few with horns like this one as an intimidation factor..........View attachment 689627

Wow. Texas should be jealous! Great picture.

MoKelly

tallyho8 · Mar 10, 2021

While I would not call myself a real cowboy, I have worked with cattle enough to have quite a bit of experience with them. A rancher not far from us had a large herd of cattle and quite a bit of property that he leased. To save money by not hiring a bunch of hands to work his cattle, each year he would call up my saddle club for help. Being mainly a bunch of "dudes" everyone was thrilled to help round up cattle without even having to pay anything.

We would round them up, herd them to the pens, where we would put them through the squeeze chutes to worm them and separate them into different pens. The new calves would be branded and then the bull calves would be castrated. The speed at which they were castrated using only a regular sharp kitchen knife (no stainless steel) was amazing and that they usually all survived it was even more amazing.

The experience made many of us and our horses pretty good at cutting before we even knew what cutting was. Reading a cows mind by watching his slight movements while herding them taught us how to keep the cattle going in the right direction. Being in swampy territory we also learned which stuck cattle to pull out and which ones it was best to use a bullet on because it was to late to save them.

The old rancher would read our horses backs after we finished and unsaddled and tell us which of us were saddled properly and which ones needed different types or sizes of saddles to keep our horses working to the best of their abilities. He could spot a good cow horse almost immediately while they were still tied to the trailer and tell us how much better he was then the rest of them and was always right. He was in his 80s on our last roundup and could still outride the majority of us.

Bearsixty7 · Mar 10, 2021

oosik said:
..Spring branding should be an experience all city folks get to watch. They would have to provide their own "barf buckets".

LOL! it's not that bad! Branded many head in my youth, My brother and I had our own brand and my Dad and Uncle had the same initials so they shared an iron and just had different locations on the cattle. We would use a paint brush and brush mineral oil on the brand afterwards. I even harvested a few "Rocky Mountain Oysters" and even tried them after we cooked them, never became a fan. I've injected several shots and pushed down many deworming bolus. Not only worked our cattle but helped work cattle for 3 uncles and a few of dads friends. I've even had to reach in and help get a calf or two delivered. Miss the farm life, maybe will get back into it very small time when I retire.

grsthegreat · Mar 10, 2021

Bearsixty7 said:
LOL! it's not that bad! Branded many head in my youth, My brother and I had our own brand and my Dad and Uncle had the same initials so they shared an iron and just had different locations on the cattle. We would use a paint brush and brush mineral oil on the brand afterwards. I even harvested a few "Rocky Mountain Oysters" and even tried them after we cooked them, never became a fan. I've injected several shots and pushed down many deworming bolus. Not only worked our cattle but helped work cattle for 3 uncles and a few of dads friends. I've even had to reach in and help get a calf or two delivered. Miss the farm life, maybe will get back into it very small time when I retire.

naaaa. dont miss it at all. muddy , sloppy work. ive pulled so many calves over the years i never want to do it again. Horses, for the most part, like and respect a good owner. Cattle for the most part hate our guts. been cow kicked so many time...i forget. even after helping a cow deliver a calf that was so stuck the cow nearly died. the cow got up and kicked me. they deserve to be made into hamburger patties.

bindian · Mar 10, 2021

MoKelly said:
Wow. Texas should be jealous! Great picture.

MoKelly

Nope. This is one ranch near Willis, Texas.

Watoosi Ranch between Willis and Montgomery.jpg

My Dad was a genuine Texas Cowboy.

Cowboy M.C. with Bossy near Brown house.jpg

He was raised on farm in the Texas Panhandle. That is a pearl handle 38 revolver on his hip.

They raised Greyhounds to run down coyotes. He would run trap lines before school. The whole school knew when he caught a shunk. The teacher sent him home and told him to run his trap line in the evenings.
I don't have horses today, but my brother and I had 4 horses between us while growing up. When I was 12, we rode to the store everyday during the summer and on Saturdays during school.
Me a few years ago.

I got to go on my first round up and branding when I turned 9. Branding just stinks and cutting boar hogs is not my favorite past time. We would ride the calves in the corral. Life on the farm was never boring.
hugs, Brandi

STx · Mar 10, 2021

My cousin’s husband was a cowboy at the Double-Arrow in Calvert, Tx. They lived on a 2,000 acreish pasture, there were 5 other pastures with cowboys living on them. I spent the summer working that ranch when I was 16, it was a good time. They did a roundup while I was there, I rode with them and helped move calves through the pens, branding was done with an electric iron. Afterwards there was a big party with a craps table, I won enough to buy a registered Beagle.

redman135 · Mar 10, 2021

deserteagle71, the trouble with moving cattle or sheep on the road these days is there are so few people left who know how to navigate through stock.

Streetcar · Mar 11, 2021

grsthegreat said:
naaaa. dont miss it at all. muddy , sloppy work. ive pulled so many calves over the years i never want to do it again. Horses, for the most part, like and respect a good owner. Cattle for the most part hate our guts. been cow kicked so many time...i forget. even after helping a cow deliver a calf that was so stuck the cow nearly died. the cow got up and kicked me. they deserve to be made into hamburger patties.

I had more problems with the horses than I ever did with the cattle. Horses were mean and did some stupid things that got them hurt

2LaneCruzer · Mar 11, 2021

bindian said:
Nope. This is one ranch near Willis, Texas. View attachment 689672
My Dad was a genuine Texas Cowboy. View attachment 689676 View attachment 689679 He was raised on farm in the Texas Panhandle. That is a pearl handle 38 revolver on his hip.View attachment 689674 They raised Greyhounds to run down coyotes. He would run trap lines before school. The whole school knew when he caught a shunk. The teacher sent him home and told him to run his trap line in the evenings.
I don't have horses today, but my brother and I had 4 horses between us while growing up. When I was 12, we rode to the store everyday during the summer and on Saturdays during school.
Me a few years ago.View attachment 689681 View attachment 689682
I got to go on my first round up and branding when I turned 9. Branding just stinks and cutting boar hogs is not my favorite past time. We would ride the calves in the corral. Life on the farm was never boring.
hugs, Brandi

I'm partial to pretty blondes from Texas, Brandi. I married one from East Texas over 50 years ago. In fact, the day before we were married, we rode double on her pretty Palomino, "Taffy". She was a PK and barrel racer, though not a rancher's daughter.