Tin vs Hide Ponies

[Older Whiskey]

Many say you ain't no cowboy, unless you have a pony
I call horse pucky and pure beef baloney
In days of pokin cattle, along the Old Chisholm Trail
They needed horses, ponies, and mules oh well

But these days things are changing, leanin toward ATV
Boots and britches last longer, that we can see
No spurs are needed, to encourage it to run
Like a horse it is great, for hard work or fun

Although you didn't ask, here's my philosophy
About side by side, motorcycles, and ATV
Hay, grass, or oats, they don't need to burn
So, listen close if you have concern

It's side by sides, motorcycles, ATVs, and gas
Replacing the horse, the mule, and the grass
But wait, one thing that I haven't seen
That's ranchers growing, their own gasoline

 

[webfoot]

Here they both get used. The ATV's are handy and you can jump in them and go. No catching and saddling involved. But it is not good to rope a cow off an ATV. And we have a lot of ground which you just can't take an ATV on but a horse will go. So the answer is locally they flat wear out ATV's and i guess they wear out horses too.

 

[Older Whiskey]

Here they both get used. The ATV's are handy and you can jump in them and go. No catching and saddling involved. But it is not good to rope a cow off an ATV. And we have a lot of ground which you just can't take an ATV on but a horse will go. So the answer is locally they flat wear out ATV's and i guess they wear out horses too.

If you are going to rope off an ATV, I highly recommend using break away. There is no dallying with ATV's. Also I would not recommend bulldogging or steer wrestling off any tin pony.

 

[Faster horses]

If you are going to rope off an ATV, I highly recommend using break away. There is no dallying with ATV's. Also I would not recommend bulldogging or steer wrestling off any tin pony.

Over in the Big Hole in Montana (it's a big swamp) they have learned to rope off ATV's to doctor yearlings.
They have a ball on the back of a 4-wheeler that they tie on to. I don't remember the whole story about how
they heel the yearling, but they do. It's kind of wild, but they can't ride a horse across the swampy ground.

 

[Puzzled]

Nothing can replace the horse. The modern vehicles no matter was size, shape or color save time, some provide a warmer environment to travel in, but they can never replace the working relationship and versatility of a good horse.

Roping off an ATV. A right handed person would need to move the throttle to the left side, should be possible. No tying hard and fast or taking a dally, just the ability to initially get a rope on a fast moving critter and then go from there.

My parents talked about one horse my mom rode was a really little "bunch grasser". To small to expect to hold a cow, so when my mom roped the cow, she dropped the rope, one of their horse stepped on the end of the rope, causing the rope to pop up in the air, my dad was right there on his horse, reached out grabbed the rope and took a dally. Cow caught

One thing the ATV is good at is knocking down a renegade sheep. You get them moving at a good speed, get along side em just enough to swing the front wheel into their ribcage, it knocks the sheep over, ATV slides to a stop with the front wheel firmly planted on top the sheeps ribcage, pinning the sheep to the ground. Border collies are grinning ear to ear giving each other high fives.

 

[jodywy]

can travel 5-6 miles moves cows out of a pasture be back home before one would have gotten there with the horses and before it hit 105

 

[deff]

My last horse died last fall. She was over 30 so it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise but it was kind of unsettling since it marked the first time in almost 66 years that I didn't have a horse to call my own. Shucks!, I hadn't rode in almost ten years since I ascended to "senior status" on the ranch and was relegated to driving the feed truck leading the parade whenever we gathered or moved cattle. I observe that the 40 something age "kids" on the place seem to be riding their machines instead of horses more and more as time goes on.

 

[Older Whiskey]

My last horse died last fall. She was over 30 so it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise but it was kind of unsettling since it marked the first time in almost 66 years that I didn't have a horse to call my own. Shucks!, I hadn't rode in almost ten years since I ascended to "senior status" on the ranch and was relegated to driving the feed truck leading the parade whenever we gathered or moved cattle. I observe that the 40 something age "kids" on the place seem to be riding their machines instead of horses more and more as time goes on.

Around here we see ATVs used for the ranch work and then the horses being ridden for recreation after the ranch work is done. A good cow horse is hard to find.

 

[Puzzled]

One rancher in this area stopped letting his crew use the ATV's to gather/roundup because they were pushing the livestock to hard/fast. If something went down the one member of the crew would shoot them. So the rancher made the crew gather on foot it slowed the pace quite abit. By the time the crew hiked up out of so of the canyons they were walking pretty slow.

 

[Older Whiskey]

AHEM AHEM seems to me there is a better way

 

[Faster horses]

AHEM AHEM seems to me there is a better way

That was NOT impressive. Talk about stressing cattle. His loop was good and his catch was good. It ended there.

 

[jodywy]

Know a doctor grew up on a ranch east of Buffalo. he have to get on his dirt bike after school do a 30 to 50 mile loop checking water tanks and pipelines, when he got home from school every afternoon.

 

[Puzzled]

Know a doctor grew up on a ranch east of Buffalo. he have to get on his dirt bike after school do a 30 to 50 mile loop checking water tanks and pipelines, when he got home from school every afternoon.

That would be a long ride horseback, even on a Tennessee Walker

 

[webfoot]

Here from about late November until about now the horses are on winter break. Cows are in the flat hay meadows so it is quads and side by sides. Once the cows go to the hills the ATV's are limited to the few two tracks and horses go to work. The lack of cow horses and cowboys is one of the reasons that they ditched the calf tables and went back to roping and dragging to the fire at brandings. But a good mountain ridden cow horse will cost you $10,000 and up.

 

[Older Whiskey]

Know a doctor grew up on a ranch east of Buffalo. he have to get on his dirt bike after school do a 30 to 50 mile loop checking water tanks and pipelines, when he got home from school every afternoon.

I did a 10 mile run of the main ditch that fed several ranches before school in the spring and before other ranch work in the summer. I had to get up early (for a teen) at 4:00 AM so all the gates would be set by 6 AM when ranchers were out irrigating. It was all flood irrigation and no rancher could be on the main ditch or its trail. That was the Irrigation Districts property. The gates were set by the ditch rider which was me for our section. How much water a rancher wanted to use that day had to be called in the day or evening before and be in their allotment. All I had to do was crank the gate, to the allowed acre feet for that ranch, and lock it.

The main ditch rider was paid a nice salary by the District and they subcontracted with high school kids to do shorter sections so all ranchers would have water by 6 AM. There was about 130 miles of main ditch and a couple hundred ranches, so for one person to do it created a problem. I used an old Cushman. Other teen riders used horses and most got fired. By the time they got up, horse cared for and saddled, they were already behind and any rancher, with shovel in hand at 6AM that didn't see H2O flowing toward them, was not happy and the District would be getting a rather unpleasant call.

The main ditch rider, rode the entire ditch every day to check and make sure all gates were set correctly and no sub rider was being dishonest. He also looked for any problems with the ditch and gates.

The interesting thing is back in those days, there was no way of measuring how much a ranch actually used that day, so if you didn't use all the water you ordered, then tough luck. How a rancher set the gate to their feeder ditches or if they got sick and couldn't irrigate, wasn't the districts concern. Most times if sickness or emergency occurred, then a neighbor rancher would go over and do their best to keep the water flowing without washout or shutting it off.

 

[Older Whiskey]

The ditch rider traded in his Cushman motor scooter with side car in 1967 to get a 3 wheeler. He had the first one in the area. After he lost control and both he and rig ended up in the ditch, he went back to a Cushman with side car. . Those early 3 wheelers were dangerous.

I used my dads old 1950 Cushman that was mostly rust. It wasn't pretty but it did the job. I called it Tetty, my nickname for Tetanus.

With late summer water wars starting and because I wouldn't break the water laws for anyone, the neighbor boys called me the Ditch Witch and my trusty rusty tin pony, Tough Tetty.

Minimum wage back then was $1.25 an hour, so $5 for two hour of enjoyable work, was envied until the envious realized what time they had to get up and go to work, seven days a week.