Soapweed
Well-known member
500 BULLS by Joy J. Fairhead
The first years that I was on my place in South Dakota [early 1920's], times were tough. We were trying to build up a cattle ranch, so I bought a bunch of pigs, keeping the females and fattening the males. We broke out sod and planted it to corn, the hog business grew, selling pigs and buying cattle. It wasn't long until we were starting to have a large herd of cattle. We put up wild hay in stacks, sold some hay, and leased pasture to cattlemen for winter. Sometimes we took in cows and calves to pasture.
One day a speculator cattleman, S.T. Napper, came and bought our fresh range and 500 tons of hay. He wanted me to feed out some cattle for the winter. About a month later, he came back and wanted me to meet the train at Merriman to receive the cattle. He had gone to the Sioux City, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska stockyards and had bought 500 thin bulls from 4 to 9 years old. We unloaded the Angus, Hereford, Shorthorn, and Holstein bulls. It was such a mess of fighting bulls.
We took the bulls north of Merriman about 15 miles to the Frank Rose ranch, where we used the corrals. We roped the bulls by the head and heels and drug them out of the corral to another yard, where we sawed the bulls' horns off as close to the head as we could. They bled like stuck hogs. We branded the bulls ST and castrated them. Then we seared the arteries around the horns and castrations. It took awful big stout horses to handle these bulls and good cowboys. When the horses got tired, we got fresh mounts. We had to watch close, and if we found those starting to bleed, we would bring them back in and use the hot iron again. I guess it took about three days to give them the works.
The next day we drove them to my ranch, where I watched them, doctored them, and put them on pasture. Then Mr. Napper shipped in a carload of cotton cake, and hired me to freight it to my ranch, 30 miles northeast of town [Merriman] to the Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.
I'd hook up a team, take five to seven one hundred pound sacks of cotton cake, round up the bulls, and feed them. They sure liked the cottonseed chunks, and before long, all I'd have to do was drive to the center of a 1600 acre pasture and start yelling "Yo-hee" at the top of my voice. Here would come the stags on the run. I tried to drag the sacks with the mouth open, but those stags would knock me down, so I started feeding them from the rear of my wagon.
When the horses saw the stags coming on the run, "like a herd of buffalo," they would begin to tremble and start running. I'd have to get back to the front and stop them, if I was at the rear. The old bull stags would hit the wagon and nearly upset it. I'd drive around for a while, snub up the lines, and get back in the rear of the wagon and scatter out the cake in the snow or on the ground. I surely wish I had a picture of them on the run.
There were 500 of these bulls from 4 to 9 years old. It took a long time to heal up the horns and castrations, but we never lost a stag. In the summertime, they put on a lot of weight, and were shipped to market for bologna meat. I made good wages and was home with the family taking care of the ranch.
The first years that I was on my place in South Dakota [early 1920's], times were tough. We were trying to build up a cattle ranch, so I bought a bunch of pigs, keeping the females and fattening the males. We broke out sod and planted it to corn, the hog business grew, selling pigs and buying cattle. It wasn't long until we were starting to have a large herd of cattle. We put up wild hay in stacks, sold some hay, and leased pasture to cattlemen for winter. Sometimes we took in cows and calves to pasture.
One day a speculator cattleman, S.T. Napper, came and bought our fresh range and 500 tons of hay. He wanted me to feed out some cattle for the winter. About a month later, he came back and wanted me to meet the train at Merriman to receive the cattle. He had gone to the Sioux City, Iowa and Omaha, Nebraska stockyards and had bought 500 thin bulls from 4 to 9 years old. We unloaded the Angus, Hereford, Shorthorn, and Holstein bulls. It was such a mess of fighting bulls.
We took the bulls north of Merriman about 15 miles to the Frank Rose ranch, where we used the corrals. We roped the bulls by the head and heels and drug them out of the corral to another yard, where we sawed the bulls' horns off as close to the head as we could. They bled like stuck hogs. We branded the bulls ST and castrated them. Then we seared the arteries around the horns and castrations. It took awful big stout horses to handle these bulls and good cowboys. When the horses got tired, we got fresh mounts. We had to watch close, and if we found those starting to bleed, we would bring them back in and use the hot iron again. I guess it took about three days to give them the works.
The next day we drove them to my ranch, where I watched them, doctored them, and put them on pasture. Then Mr. Napper shipped in a carload of cotton cake, and hired me to freight it to my ranch, 30 miles northeast of town [Merriman] to the Sioux Reservation in South Dakota.
I'd hook up a team, take five to seven one hundred pound sacks of cotton cake, round up the bulls, and feed them. They sure liked the cottonseed chunks, and before long, all I'd have to do was drive to the center of a 1600 acre pasture and start yelling "Yo-hee" at the top of my voice. Here would come the stags on the run. I tried to drag the sacks with the mouth open, but those stags would knock me down, so I started feeding them from the rear of my wagon.
When the horses saw the stags coming on the run, "like a herd of buffalo," they would begin to tremble and start running. I'd have to get back to the front and stop them, if I was at the rear. The old bull stags would hit the wagon and nearly upset it. I'd drive around for a while, snub up the lines, and get back in the rear of the wagon and scatter out the cake in the snow or on the ground. I surely wish I had a picture of them on the run.
There were 500 of these bulls from 4 to 9 years old. It took a long time to heal up the horns and castrations, but we never lost a stag. In the summertime, they put on a lot of weight, and were shipped to market for bologna meat. I made good wages and was home with the family taking care of the ranch.