Catching Wild Cattle

Ha ha, i'm the same, always really wary when I have to be on foot - So much happier when i'm on my horse cause I can trust them to react quicker then me! Often it's me on my horse and Dad and Michael on foot in the yard to sort them. I push them around from the back and dad works the gate while Michael turns back the ones we don't want. Works pretty well. Then I get to play around cutting while they have a break :]

Welcome Boots...jump in!

Smrobs...too bad you didn't get to rope today or have your horse put a beatin' on that 'ol bitch..tee he.
When do you guys get your yearlings in?

Today I went to a friends to help tag some calves. It was fun but windy and I was trying to break in a new cotton rope, only a 5/16" so I was having hell roping today...
Anyhow..
It was kinda funny I thought about you today when we had a calf down and mom was mad....she thrashed the poor kid we had tagging and then after that she came after my horse, I was riding Stilts today, and she came up blowing snot slinging her head, Stilts reached out and bit her in the face(I love horses that cow hard,tee he)..then she got mad and came again and got her head under his belly so I had to pop my dallies and ride to keep from getting in a wreck and tipping over my little pony. I like riding a little horse...but this is one of those times I wish I was riding some big brute..lol.

We normally get them in sometime in March or April, depending on how the grass grows. I'm hoping we get some more rain before then because I really missed having them last year.


ROFL, sounds like you had a lot more fun than I did . Sucks with the wind, though.

What's the rankest, roughest thing yall had to catch?

Mine was a buffalo heifer, but the most brutal one was a stud horse that a guy had to move. I chased it around a small pasture till I was feeeling sorry for my ole horse, and didn't even get close enough to throw. It's hard to outrun a 4yo stud that's hard and fit from runnin fences all day and chasin mares, when you're ridin a gelding with a 55 pound saddle and me and miscellaneous gear. So I had the owner case him with his 4 wheeler till his legs were jelly. By then it was dark, and he spotlighted the horse for me. That horse squared up to that light so pretty, and I threw my best wild horse hoolihan on him. Although he was very tired, when he realized he was caught, he took the slack out of that rope in a hurry. But ole gray was rested up and sat plum down and we kept the rope tight till he tapped out.

I am not sure....

None of our stuff was really mean...it was more wild than anything. And if you ran them out of air and got them hot then they would get mad.

I like the horse catching story! Horses are a lot different than cows, I think, they are a lot faster and it takes a while to get them winded.

You have to have a horse that can handle it. Some horses just go nuts chasing other horses..some can't handle it. The big black and white mare I used to ride ride was one of them, you couldn't chase horses on her...she would turn into a complete wing nut.

Last year 2 Mustangs got loose. It was about 3 miles from here and they called some guys up the road. These guys are handy and have some tough horses. They chased those horses literally half way across the county and finally the horses jumped in a catfish pond and they were able to stand on the bank and rope em while they were swimming. Hwy Patrol was with them and said they chased about 15 miles.

Holy crap! That's a long ways! I have done a few miles chasing the broodmares but not 15 miles!

The broodmares would peel out as soon as they seen you horseback, we always tried to keep them at the top of the ranch out of the way...anyhow we had a bunch boughten dry cows we were fattening up. A big bunch of them were in the same pasture as the broodmares. So we finally get the dry cows out of the willows and headed to the gate to lot where we can sort them. And about that time all them broodmares coming running down off the hill and blow out our cows, the cows are turning around and headed back to the willows and I go to head them off. Me and lil Stilts got the ears laid back to get a head. All of a sudden I did a face plant on the ground, that fast, rung my bell pretty good and I think I have dirt in my mouth,but in reality I was spitting my teeth out on the ground and there is blood everywhere. My horse got up and shakes his head...he didn't know what happened either! My husband is pissed thinking I let everything by and can't figure out why I am squated down in the brush. He rides up and his eyes got the size saucer dishes. I guess there was a loop of cable sticking up out of the ground in the sage brush and my horse managed to stick his front feet in it and thwaped us both on to the ground. It knocked my teeth out one of them came through my lip...road rash up and down my face and I couldn't really move my jaw..I ate mashed taters for a couple of days..lol. I looked like an 'ol tweeker with my teeth gone. It was a month before I could get the time to go to town to get them fixed. Every time someone mentions running horses I think of that day...I hated those mares....they never took good care of them and none of them produced good colts except for one. We tried to get them to get rid of them all and just buy some decent colts...

Wow what a wreck. One of the guys that chased the mustangs so far in my story had a wreck like that. Their dogs bayed some cows and they were haulin ass through the woods to get to them. His horse tripped in a woven wire fence. They did a front flip. His neck and collarbone was broken. As the horse tried to get up, the man's nephew noticed his foot was hung in the stirrup. The nephew jumped off his horse and onto the downed horse. Held him down till his foot was free. Probably saved his life because this horse isn't the kind to stop if somebody's dragging beside him.

The guy spent awhile in the hospital.

This is why I don't get in a hurry. That's what my dogs are for. Now it's different if you're on your own land or you know the terrain. But when you're on unfamiliar ground bad things can happen fast. I worry about stepping in a foot trap too. Lots of trapping goin on here

Wow, that's good thinking of the nephew! Most people would sit there and stare at it happening instead of reacting.
It is the same down here too as far as down fence. When we rented this house, the neighbor leased the pasture for his farmer cows...he never really fixed the fences, no need when everytime you walk out on the front step your cows start bawling and run up to you. Anyhow I did some fence fixing before I turned our horses out and that is what I found, old fence everywhere! So I spent some time trying to clean that up...especially since Stilts is the most accident prone living thing I have ever had contact with in my entire life. The others I couldn't kill if I tried.
I don't know how you guys deal with it...the fences, the briars, the vines and them crazy poison sticker things..really???lol

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