Learning to Herd Cattle on a Working Ranch Vacation
Meet our newest cowboy, Karl. Karl comes from the big city. He wanted a no frills, working cowboy adventure. He wanted to take part in everyday ranch life – not be pampered at a dude ranch. So we mounted him on a surefooted horse and taught him how to herd Texas Longhorn steers.
He went on a three-hour ride his first day to get used to his mount and see some new country. Now he had been taking riding lessons to get ready for this vacation – and he is an athletic, active person. But seven riding lessons in an arena don’t really prepare you for cowboying on almost 50,000 acres of mountains and canyons. But to his credit, he made up for inexperience with a great attitude and a whole lot of try. He did well, never complained and never chickened out – even when things got pretty wild.
Gathering and moving over 200 head of longhorns can be harder than you might think. First you have to find the steers. They can hide in sunflowers, ravines, under trees, in canyon bottoms, and behind boulders. The Texas Longhorns come in all colors – and that makes spotting them easier, sometimes. But a red steer in a thicket is pretty darn hard to see.
Seeing the steers and getting to them is not the same thing. Sometimes you just see bovine dots across two or three ridges from where you are. Our new cowboy had to scramble up narrow trails, slide down rocky slopes, and cross boulder fields. He did say after the first hard hill climb on a cow trail with drop offs on both sides that he almost backed out. But he learned to trust his horse. Our ranch horses are used to rough places and very careful not to hurt themselves. Of course, it is up to the rider to hang on and follow the 1st cowboy rule here at the ranch – “End up with a leg on each side of your horse.”
Once you get to the cattle, the next step is to start gathering small bunches into bigger bunches. Karl excelled at locating steers and bringing them into increasing larger groups. He found stragglers and brought them in, learned to line out cattle, and when to water the cattle. All the time he was getting more confident in the saddle and in tune with his horse. By the end of the first day, our new cowboy was negotiating canyons and mesas like a pro. Twice I heard brush breaking and looked to see if a bear or elk was in the brush, only to see our cowboy all wadded up in tree branches. He broke loose eventually with no damage- except a little wear and tear on his clothes and hat. New cowboys usually lean the hard way that cowboy gear – chaps, cowboy hat, gloves, and long sleeve shirts – is not there for decoration. Cowboy gear saves your hide in rough country.
Once you have swept an area and all the steers there are gathered into one bunch, the next step is to drive the herd to the next location – a holding pasture in this case. It took us three days of gathering steers into the holding pasture before we felt we had the whole herd. Every day we would find a few more steers to bring in. Normally, I try and count steers as they are driven through a gate so I know when the whole herd is in the next pasture. It didn’t work this time. We got caught in a storm about four hours from the headquarters. The wind blew so hard that our slickers billowed out like sailboat sails. We had to hold our cowboy hats as best we could since the hats would have blown to the next county in the wind. It poured rain – no visibility at all. Then the lightning and thunder started. This new cowboy had the very Western experience of being in a real-life cattle stampede with lightning bouncing all around us. We opened gates and just charged as many cattle as we could into the holding pasture and hoped they would stop before they hit another fence. There was no counting cattle – or photo opts – in that storm! Karl had 100 steers or so running right at him as fast as they could go. He managed to turn most into the holding field. I ran back and forth gathering the steers who ran north and south of the gate. We got them in finally and rode back to the barn in a steady rain and lots of close lightning.
After all steers were in the holding pasture, the next step is to gather the holding trap and move the steers to their destination. In this case the steers went to the old ranch headquarters. The steers were bunched into one group and herded across the dirt road, across the creek and into the headquarter pasture. Since the riparian corridor is a no grazing zone for habitat protection, it was very important to not let the cattle drift off the dirt road. We gathered and lined the cattle out. Another cowboy rode his trusty mule and helped keep the steers from drifting into the riparian zone. They brought the whole herd into the new pasture and didn’t miss one. I finally got to count the steers through the gate – all present and accounted for.
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