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Cows and cowboys

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I can appreciate both sides of that (argument ?) having worked an open-range operation outside of Douglas Wyo, where we had to chase down newborn calves on foot to tag 'em, and record all the #'s on those little red books I carry year round anymore...

...cowboss I worked for on two separate 'tours of duty' (orig born/raised somewhere around the NM 'Turkey-Track' outfit or so he said) tried awful hard to prove his point that running a cow/calf outfit in such a way that allowing 'instincts' to take priority over 'gentle' handling of cattle.

One morning, he decided to jump in and ride 'shot-gun' on the feed route I'd been assigned to, for several months one winter...so he could see how 'my' cows were doing (his truck was in the shop with a busted tranny, from him chasing down a few 'wild one's' a few days prior don't'cha know) and while waiting patiently for my group of heiffers to gather around so I could get a proper 'head count' and know how much cake to feed (multiply number of cows per 2lbs of cake = number of 'clicks' to count from cake-feeder) he 'caught' me hand-feeding pieces of cake to some 15 or so cows who'd learned to take a liking to me, over the past few weeks I'd been taking care of this feed route.

Big 'cow-man' that he was...he runs all around the edge of the flat-bed pickup we're feeding off of..and KICKS the girls in the faces...till they run backwards in confusion, barking at me: "You'll git yerself KILLED by them bitches, when it's time to tag them calves" he says...

...I knew all those particular cows by tag numbers, and even then...I would've known them by 'face'...not ONE of those particular cows offered to give me any grief, the following weeks later while I straddled each an' every one of them calves, to give them shots, tags and run the 'weight tape' around the hairline of thier little 'hoovies'...

Guess those cows showed HIM now, did'nt they ?

I miss that outfit quite a bit...but it ain't because of the man I worked for, I can tell you that much...it's the COWS who made that job work for me...

And I'm not even born/raised in this profession...hey'l...I'm just an ex-military-brat...and those 'range cows' trusted me more than the avg cowpuncher from hell...
 
Ha ha ha yeah some of them guys get a little to hell bent for lather thats for sure , i worked with a feller like that once to anytime anything ran off she was caught and tied and horns tipped and led away . Me i try to get around a cow first if i dont have somthin pressin to do at the time and if last resort she will end up on the end of my rope . I have had alot of them old gentle cows like that when you brand they will come up while your holdin a calf and go to lookin for a handout or a scratch behin the ears and boy it sure scares the hell out of some of them boys when you got a cow like that they think she is gonna eat their lunch ha ha . Yeah that guy sounds like he was raised on a farm and day dreamed about wild cattle and probly never seen one .
 
Saddle Tramp told of working on an outfit where they didn't dehorn any of the purebred hereford cows. he said you'd get to taggin' a calf andf one of them ol' mama's would just circle you with her horns while she was sniffin' her baby to see if he was OK. He said if he had shown any fear, he'd a got hooked for sure.

Meanest one I ever been around was red angus and red angus tarentaise cross. One ol' rip, we'd play tag with her ahorseback until she got far enough away to grab the calf and slip him under a 3 wire barbwire fence. She'd come and beller and slobber all over herself, but she'd never touch the wire. Sure made me nervous the FIRST time we did that! :lol:

Had a tarentaise who would take the kids or anyone else and for some reason had her in the corral. We didn't realise it at thye time, how bad she was.

JB JR was a little bitty ol' kid and came to the house crying, scuffed up and dirty, saying he had fallen down hard. We rushed him to the emergancy room and they went to questioning him, thinking child abuse. When we got his shirt off and there was a hoof print in the middle of his back and bruises the same as the seam in his shirt across his back. We finally figured out she had knocked him down and tromped him. He had a broken collar bone.

He still is trying to get even with nasty cows today! :wink: :lol:

And she went to town. Minus a little hair in a few spots! :wink:

Yup, I got a bit of a temper myself. :x

A snorty horse or cow don't bother me, but i sure don't want one around who will get someone hurt.

I've had pets and most the time my cows are fairly gentle, but a little chase is just part of the game. If you can't pen them in my creaky, old, wornout, sorry fences, they better head down the road.

Poor fences make good cowboys. :D
 
[quote="Jinglebob"

Had a tarentaise who would take the kids or anyone else and for some reason had her in the corral. We didn't realise it at thye time, how bad she was.

It is called getting "That run down feeling" and drinking "GERITOL" doesn't help! :shock:
 

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