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Custom Cattle Working Crew

flyingS

Well-known member
Does anyone have thoughts on a custom cattle working crew? The crew would do everything from branding to pregging and weaning. Low stress cattle handling guaranteed and full crew BQA certified. There would also be a full service portable facility availabe ( panels to hold 400 hd, working alley and Silencer chute). The thought process behind this crew is the cost of day labor as well as the hassle to move cattle around, organize a crew and set up facilities. Everything would be take care of for you. Any thoughts as to whether this is a service that people would use.
 

leanin' H

Well-known member
While the idea has merit, it sure would take a lot of the fun out of life. Unless I was on your crew! :D I'd think maybe corporate outfits or absentee ownership ranches might go that route. But out in this country, that's why ya have neighbors. A branding is a big doin' that folks come from all over the desert to attend. We visit and catch up and occassionally brand a calf. And when ya get done with your own ya tramp over to the next place to help them. Some families have helped each other for multiple generations. It's all part of what makes this lifestyle such a joy.
 

Justin

Well-known member
intersting idea..
for outfits like mine, that being a one man crew 99% of the time, your services would be very useful at times. one thing for sure is that you have to make dam sure you had a "cowboy" crew, or your first job could be your last
 

Faster horses

Well-known member
This was tried in Wyoming...didn't work...not enough crew or
enough knowledgeable people on the supposedly regular crew...

The instigator of the Cowboy Service hired some local cowboys to help out his
'regular crew' when he was hired to brand a big bunch of calves. Some
of the local cowboys that were hired to help with this particular job (and they agreed because it looked like it could be fun)
worked their rear ends off, because the regulars doing
the branding, castrating, dehorning was a woman, a kid and an
old man (not everyone showed up so they were very short of help). Nothing wrong with that, if they knew what the were doing (they didn't) and there needed to be more of them.
The guy doing the dehorning had not a clue and was
just digging holes in the calves head. The castrating was
absolutely scary. It was just awful and the guys didn't get home
til way late and they were exhausted. I think they were paid $25
each. :shock:

One of the good hands remarked after they were done,
"Heck, I'd just as soon go for free and feel like I did somebody
some good. This was just a wreck i more ways than one."

Good luck on your venture, but you need to be SURE you have
a good, knowledgeable crew (and that's gonna be tough, I would
think) so I totally agree with Justin.
 

flyingS

Well-known member
Everyone used to neighbor in this country also. Cattle working days were a big deal, especially branding. Now there is lots of day help hired and as soon as you are done everyone hurries up to eat then goes home to go to work. Used to be that you stuck around and played cards and visited. What is the average herd size that most of you would work. I am thinking, here it would be 400 to 500 hd. The size of the crew would obviously depend on what all you had to do to the calves. Some average time frames to give a person an idea would be: AIing cows average 100 cows and hour with a 3 to 4 man crew suppling cattle to breeding boxes (we've been able to average this on 4 sets of cows averaging right at 300hd), would be the same at pregging if you have a vet that will preg that fast; Processing calves depends on the size of gather and data recording, just giving shots we can run 500 through in about 8 to 9 hrs with the gather and sort, with a 5 to 6 man crew. Branding would be the toughest because you have to have people that can rope pretty well, if you don't have cattle on the ground you can't brand em. I've worked on a crew that will brand 300 to 400 in a morning with a 10 man crew and nordforks. Thanks for the feedback, it's just something I have been kicking around.
 

LazyWP

Well-known member
You do know they are doing that over in Valentine? Might get kinda congested if there were more then a couple crews working this area, but heck I am game to help if you get it going.
 

LazyWP

Well-known member
Yea, I am, and I know they don't provide all the services you are thinking of, and tend to stay farther east then where we are. I know when I was down in feedlot country, they tried to talk me into running a custom processing crew. The idea was to have 4 or 5 big feedlots and you would make the rounds processing incoming cattle. Would have worked great down there, but I was living in a house provided for by the ranch where I worked and I chickened out. Up here I think you would have to have another form of income as well as the custom cow work. Just don't think you could stay busy year round.
 
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