[ponyboy]

Even in ranch roping, speed is necessary. Not every cow is just going to stand there calmly and wait for you to drape the rope around it's horns/neck or patiently wait for you to set up a good heel loop and then obediently walk forward into it.

Why does the cow need to be roped at all? I know people that have pet cows and they stand tied or stand for the vet just like horses do. Is it just that ranchers don't have the time to train their cows?

Besides, aren't cattle kept in stalls these days?

 

[JustDressageIt]

Why does the cow need to be roped at all? I know people that have pet cows and they stand tied or stand for the vet just like horses do. Is it just that ranchers don't have the time to train their cows?

Besides, aren't cattle kept in stalls these days?

When you have hundreds of cattle, there is NO way to train them all to stand nicely for the vet. No cattle rancher is going to waste time teaching their hamburger to stand nicely before it's shipped off to slaughter. It's nice that some people with a cow or two can do that - but it is absolutely not feasable on a cattle ranch.
No cows I know of (other than dairy cows, to be milked) are kept in a barn, or ever see the inside of one before they're shipped. None. Again, not economic in the least.
Here in Alberta, they are kept on pasture (TONS of pasture) and herded in a few times for care, where roping and cutting become essential, then run through chutes to a truck.
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[VelvetsAB]

My grandparents have maybe 10 head of cattle, and they definitely are not pets. You cannot get too close to them before they start to move away.

Cattle are not pets. They are for meat (or milk).

You might get luckier with milk cows in being able to touch them, but a lot of them still move back when they are in the stanchion (sp?) when you move by. The barn I most recently helped a friend milk at maybe had a handful of cows out of the 50 or so that they milked that would stand there for a pet. Anything else shied away.

Even a lot of smaller diary farms still turn their herd out after they are milked...they know when to come back in in the morning/evening to be milked again. Again, because they aren't pets, but a livelihood.

 

[SAsamone]

Amen!!! :clap: Livestock...no matter how you look at it, even horses- no matter if for pleasure, rodeo, eventing...whatever, ALL livestock have a job. We must not forget that they are not fuzzy dogs and cats. We can get attatched, but ultimately they are livestock. That's why we train them differently than we do our dogs.

 

[smrobs]

Why does the cow need to be roped at all? I know people that have pet cows and they stand tied or stand for the vet just like horses do. Is it just that ranchers don't have the time to train their cows?

Besides, aren't cattle kept in stalls these days?

You are kidding, right? How many cattle do you think are on an average ranch?

Around here (and we are not even in the middle of ranching country) a ranch will range from 100 to 2000 cattle at any given time spread over many square miles. There are hundreds of new calves born each spring to each ranch only to be weaned and sold each fall, many of which will be sent to feedlots where they will be fattened up and butchered at 2-3 years old. What, exactly, would be the point of spending time training them and where in the world would those folks get enough stall space for that amount of cattle:?? To most normal people, cattle aren't pets, they are food animals, nothing more. How else would we have enough beef to feed an entire country?

 

[JustDressageIt]

You are kidding, right? How many cattle do you think are on an average ranch?

Around here (and we are not even in the middle of ranching country) a ranch will range from 100 to 2000 cattle at any given time spread over many square miles. There are hundreds of new calves born each spring to each ranch only to be weaned and sold each fall, many of which will be sent to feedlots where they will be fattened up and butchered at 2-3 years old. What, exactly, would be the point of spending time training them and where in the world would those folks get enough stall space for that amount of cattle:?? To most normal people, cattle aren't pets, they are food animals, nothing more. How else would we have enough beef to feed an entire country?

Exactly.
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[VelvetsAB]

I wouldn't want to be the person that had to clean out that many stalls everyday....

 

[SAsamone]

Ahhh, calm down, you can't blame them for thinking that. I live in florida....cow/calf country. Some of our kids are born and raised on ranches and farms and KNOW where their food comes from and how...and what REAL food tastes like. However, alot DON'T. It's sad. and our world is becoming more and more ignorant to it. They want to eat "healthy" "organic" yea okay....my great grandfather lived to be well into his 90's on bacon grease and lard and you know why? Cuz it was REAL. People just don't know anymore unless you work the trade. Sad that only about 3% of us are feeding the rest of the population....

 

[MacabreMikolaj]

Why does the cow need to be roped at all? I know people that have pet cows and they stand tied or stand for the vet just like horses do. Is it just that ranchers don't have the time to train their cows?

Besides, aren't cattle kept in stalls these days?

I sincerely hope you're joking. You DO know the difference between a dairy cow and a beef cow right?

Reminds me of a radio program a couple years ago where they were talking to some activist raging against treatment of dairy cows. The DJ asked where they expected farmers to get the milk, and the person said "why can't they buy it in the supermarket like we do?" :lol: City people make me lulzy.

 

[flytobecat]

We always had at least one pet cow out of the herd when I was a kid. Even a pet cow will kick you if its afraid and hurt. Better safe than nursing a broken arm or rib.

 

[AlexS]

I go to watch a rodeo once a year, I find it fascinating as I am an English rider who knows little about western sports.

However I chose to use the bathroom or buy a soda while the steer wresting is happening. The only time I saw it, a 300lb dude came down on a steers neck and broke it.

I don't know the rules, but in my limited experience, I don't think this is a low level event. This idiot was far too big for both the horse he was riding and the steer he wrestled. What did not help was the idiot announcer, who shouted, oh we are so cruel as people started to leave the event. That did not help one bit.

 

[BarrelBaby101]

Every discipline has pros and cons. And like many people have said, it depends on the RIDER. I personally ride in rodeo, I'm a barrel racer and proudly a team roper. And yes, I do the same thing out in the pasture when were roping cattle as I do in the ring. When you have 500 head of cattle running all around you, speed and accuracy with the rope is a must. There is no, "let's take our time today and have us or the animals stress out" no, thats not how it works. You go out, rope, tie, doctor, brand etc then let the calf go. End of story.
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[ponyboy]

When you have hundreds of cattle, there is NO way to train them all to stand nicely for the vet. No cattle rancher is going to waste time teaching their hamburger to stand nicely before it's shipped off to slaughter.

That's what I wanted to know, thanks.

my great grandfather lived to be well into his 90's on bacon grease and lard and you know why? Cuz it was REAL.

Because he actually got exercise, more probably.

 

[ponyboy]

I have another question. I have heard (from someone here I think) that real Aussie saddles don't have horns, the reason being that Aussies never roped their cattle. How did they handle them then?

...and now that I think of it, how do they doctor domestic bison? Is anybody good enough to rope those? lol

 

[Iseul]

I can't say about the Aussie saddles (other than that you're right, they don't have horns), but I do have atleast a guess with the bison. :p
I'm assuming they tranq'd them like zoos do nowadays, or they just didn't get doctored.
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[smrobs]

You'd have to ask someone who actually worked in those situations for the details.

From my understanding, the Aussies generally gather together and have one large roundup at certain times of the year where all the cattle are driven into corrals, I don't know how they would go about doctoring an individual animal in the middle of the rangeland. You'd have to ask an Aussie about that.

Most of the folks that I know that raise domestic buffalo have corrals with squeeze chutes within a fairly short distance of their pastures where the buffs are kept. That way, they either coax or drive them into the corrals and run them up into a chute for doctoring.

I was speaking of working American cattle ranches, which I have extensive experience with.

 

[bubba13]

I cannot for the life of me think what those things are called, but isn't there an Aussie (or is it South American?) tool consisting of a leather thong with weights at each end, which is then thrown and wrapped around the legs of a running cow to bring it down?

 

[Alwaysbehind]

Thank you for your very informative posts, Smrobs!

 

[flytobecat]

Bubba, I think you are think of bolos

 

[SAsamone]

Reminds me of a radio program a couple years ago where they were talking to some activist raging against treatment of dairy cows. The DJ asked where they expected farmers to get the milk, and the person said "why can't they buy it in the supermarket like we do?" :lol: City people make me lulzy.

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: thank you for brightening my day r