Are there any Cowboys anymore?

[Taverner]

This is a serious question

Are there any who are employed in the 'cowboy' profession?

I know there are a lot of suburbanites with gun racks, and lots of folks who consider themselves REDNECKS despite their jobs as IT Architects, Marketing Specialists or what not...

But are there any COW BOYS?

That is, those who's job is to herd cattle, sheep, chickens, what have you....

[SpiralHawk]

1. Yep

Youbetcha

[monmouth]

2. I think they are called "ranchers."....n/t

[Taverner]

I always thought a 'Rancher' had to own a 'Ranch'

But I could be wrong...

[monmouth]

14. Eh, me too. I've been wrong all day...n/t

[TransitJohn]

27. No, cowboys are the hired help.

Ranchers are the fuckbags who suck up huge ass ag subsidies to buy eighty thousand dollar dually F-one thousand fifties and haul behemoth horsetrailers to their English style riding events. Cowboys work the cattle riding 4-wheeled ATVs (not horses), and you can catch them at the local watering hole drinking Pabst or Coors on their monthly sojourn into town.

[blueamy66]

36. Yep. In Chandler, it was called the Pecos Lounge.

Went and picked up a few drunk cowboys/dairyhands in the old truck when they drank a bit too much. :-)

[Kali]

39. bwahahahahahahahaha

:eyes:

[TransitJohn]

41. Not sure what the eyeroll is for

but that's from my lefty perspective here in Wyoming where I've always lived. :hi:

[Kali]

44. broadbrush stereotyping

signed,

liberal, female, junky vehicle-driving, small family rancher/cowboy

[me b zola]

58. hoopties

thats what junky cars are called. And yeah, i drive them. :) Makes great economical sense for working class folks, and i would argue that middle class folks should consider it as well in this economy that looks like its going to stay with us for a while.

Cars depreciate in value, new cars (or any car bought on credit) not only is hugely more expensive because of interest paid, but they require full coverage insurance.

Driving hoopties is quite liberating. :)

[Warren DeMontague]

3. Ask Paula Cole.

God, that song was overplayed.

[w8liftinglady]

4. yes- at least in Texas

there are still a lot of small and large ranch owners... beef is still king here... and they employ horse-riding individuals who drive cattle to the feedlot,cattle trucks,etc.

[panader0]

5. Yeah. and roundups, etc.

My property is still open range. If I want to keep the cattle out, I have to build a fence. Otherwise they are entitled to munch on my land. There are many cattle around here, even with the building sprawl.
Cattle drives are over though........

[Cid_B]

10. Tell that to my folks...

The drive em by their house at irregular intervals. Road is a shit laden mess when they are done too...

[Kali]

46. the multi-day drives aren't common here in AZ

but they still do that in Montana-Wyoming when they take stock up into higher country in the spring and bring them down in the winter

but we still do drives from pasture to pasture and occasionally from one ranch to another for various reasons here - half day type things, couple miles

[Autumn]

60. Look out my front window every couple of months

I enjoy watching them. The drovers are always good about stopping and fixing the fence if a few of them break through into the pasture.

[OffWithTheirHeads]

6. Come to Tucson

In many ways it really is still the wild west here.

[aikoaiko]

13. I hung out in Wickenburg AZ for the summer and cowboying is there.

[blueamy66]

37. I was just going to add Wickenburg to my post.

I love Wickenburg.

:hi:

[sabrina 1]

55. Yes, I was just going to post that in Az there are still plenty

or real cowboys. And most of the ones I met there were really nice guys. They often ride in horse trading shows to demonstrate what a horse can do when riding 'on the range' etc. I loved watching them. My BIL's dad was a real cowboy also, and he was in Az.

[blueamy66]

56. And they look damn good in their Wranglers.

:-)

[sabrina 1]

66. Absolutely! I took pictures!

:-)

[blueamy66]

70. I hate to actually type this, but....

We used to ask the guys to turn around so that we could take pics of their Wranglers. You'd be surprised at how many guys obliged us. We used to be wild and crazy little cowgirls back in the day.....I still have the pics in my hope chest, tucked away in the garage, under many boxes.

The stories that I could tell....

:-)

[sabrina 1]

74. Lol, maybe you should take them out now! They won't do much good

buried in a box. :-)

I moved to Az about three years ago, (just moved to Ca last year) for a year and spent a lot of time at horse sales! I was surprised that there actually were real cowboys and was absolutely fascinated by them. They did like getting their photos taken though. I loved watching them ride and demonstrating roping etc. They are soooooo good! My SIL buys and trains horses so that's how I came to be there.

Love to hear some of those stories! ;-)

[blueamy66]

75. I may just get into that hope chest this weekend! :-)

Oh the stories....do you have a week????

[OffWithTheirHeads]

7. Come to Tucson

In many ways it really is still the wild west here.

[Wait Wut]

8. Yep.

Arizona has plenty. The "real" ones are normally pretty decent folks. The fake ones that hang out at the rodeo are assholes.

[pinboy3niner]

9. Well, you know what they say...

As I walked out on the streets of Laredo.
As I walked out on Laredo one day,
I spied a young cowboy all dressed in white linen,
Dressed in white linen as cold as the clay.

"I can see by your outfit that you are a cowboy."
"I see by your outfit you are a cowboy too."
"We see by our outfits that we are both cowboys.
If you get an outfit, you can be a cowboy too."

--The Smothers Brothers


:evilgrin:

[Zorra]

11. Absolutely. I've lived in the rural west for most of my life.

There are still cowboys, ranch hands that work cattle on ranches, all over the west.

While hiking on a ridge last year I watched, unobserved, as a cowboy cut cattle and then later find a stray and bring it back to the herd. It was pretty cool to watch because it was so natural and real.

There's still a whole a lot of real cowboys in Wyoming.

There's also a lot of cowboys down in Mexico, too, they're called vaqueros.

[KamaAina]

12. Hawai'i cowboys are known as "paniolos"

a corruption of espanol, which was the language the first ones spoke, having come from Mexico. Some towns on Maui and Hawai'i island (Big Island) still have hitching posts; the one in Makawao, Maui is directly across from a New Age crystal shop!!

[sufrommich]

17. When I was a girl, we lived on Maui. I remember going to the

Makawao rodeo.We saw cowboys all the time.

[bluedigger]

15. I passed these guys last September up in the Bighorns north of Cody.

They were bringing in cattle off the mountains for the winter.

[madinmaryland]

16. They have won FIVE Super Bowls. Last year was a bit disappointing, but they will

be back.

:D

[Kali]

45. !

:spray: :rofl: :spank:

[dimbear]

18. Montana. The real thing.

They don't ride horses so much nowadays.

[Taverner]

19. How would a Cowboy move the cattle from pasture to pasture?

Is that even done these days? Or is it all factory farming?

[Horse with no Name]

21. Depends if you are talking about a cowboy, a rancher or a farmer

all three different things.

A farmer farms crops and usually owns animals.

A rancher runs cattle but usually will have a few crops--usually for their own or their animals consumption.

A cowboy moves the animals around.

My brother is a rancher and a cowboy. He will sometimes herd the cattle using horses, but most of the time just throws hay on the back of his mule and they follow where he needs them to go.

[Drahthaardogs]

24. Of course they do.

In fact, in Pinedale Wyoming, they still have a thing called "The Drift" where the cowboys move the cattle from the low country up into the high mountain meadows. A steer that comes out of the mountains in the fall often looks sleek and fat like a 4-H steer due to the high meadow grass and running water. A beef only spends the last 3-4 months of its life in a feed lot where it is "finished". I.E. fed grain to turn the normally yellow fat into white fat. Lots of us never even really had that. Just took a beef right off of the grass. It is a different flavor. In fact, most Americans prefer their beef to have very very little flavor. That is why so many people do not like deer, lamb, or even bison. They say it is "gamey". Which of course is not true. Deer is not gamey, it tastes like deer, just like chicken tastes different than turkey.

Thankfully many folks are expanding their palate and grass fed beef is becoming more popular. Where I grew up, many of the local people from Mexican decent would only eat a grass or range fed beef. They much preferred the flavor.

[dionysus]

54. ohhh, i love venison, lamb, and bison meat... DROOL....

i can get bison and lamb in the grocery store but no venison :(

[struggle4progress]

48. You yell at them a lot from various sides. Cows ain't the sharpest pencils and don't always

catch on real fast

[Drahthaardogs]

53. Actually not so much

You usually get a lead cow who knows the drill, she breaks out in front and the rest follow in line. It is the yearlings and the occasional wild one (seems like all of the wild ones have Limousine in their background somewhere) that tend to be a pain in the ass. Ironically the bulls are usually the more placid of the bunch. Most of them really don't care. They follow the girls cause they like them and that seems to be good enough for them.

[struggle4progress]

65. It's been thirty-five years or so since I was doing this, but it wasn't simply a matter

of getting a head cow moving the right way with the herds I saw

Bulls may vary by breed. Some of them aren't all that docile

[Drahthaardogs]

72. Not simply a matter of one leading the way, no

But it is not like they break helter skelter and run in a hundred different directions. They understand what is going on, and for the most part, comply with really just a few cowboys keeping things moving along. We drove our herd 18 miles up the canyon every spring and then back every fall. Cows are not stupid animals, not by a long shot.

[plcdude]

20. I live in the land of

cowboys.

[PufPuf23]

22. Yes. You should get out into the country more,

Best wishes.

Not all cowboys (or girls) are even rednecks.

[Taverner]

30. I'm a suburban, er, well, a suburban suburban...

There are cows near us grazing, but that's only because I live on the edge of what would be called the Bay Area.

I have never seen anyone herding these cows - its as if they know where to go...

[TransitJohn]

23. There sure are.

A few acquaintances of mine are. Here's a fun fact: working cowboys DON'T ride horses, they ride 4-wheel ATVs. A lot less work.

[Horse with no Name]

25. That is the "mule" I speak of above. n/t

[Drahthaardogs]

28. You can do a lot on an ATV

but when a calf breaks into the scrub oak, there is only one way to get him out. A good cow pony knows his job and loves it. As a kid when we gathered I rode a big old palomino mare who LOVED to chase a breaking calf. She knew what she was doing which was good cause I had no idea what I was doing :). She took care of me.

[TransitJohn]

31. True.

Where'd you grow up?

[Drahthaardogs]

32. Southern Colorado/Northern New Mexico

Seems like ages ago. I miss home, but the home I knew, it no longer exists. The West is changing.

[TransitJohn]

33. It sure is.

I grew up in Bridger Valley, in southwest Wyoming. I asked because I saw you mention Pinedale upthread. You wouldn't recognize Pinedale. I work up there on the Mesa at times, and it's quite a bit different, to say the least.

[Drahthaardogs]

34. I lived in Pinedale for a few years not too long ago.

It's a mess. What the 2005 Energy Act did to the Jonah and the surrounding Mesa is criminal. Everyone should see it, you cannot describe the devastation in words.

[Kali]

42. depends on the country

horses can go places those damn toys can't get to, but then you only have to feed them when you use them, horse needs feeding working or not

[Drahthaardogs]

51. No work = no grain

Feed a horse grain when he is not working or when it's not really cold outside and you will soon have your own live version of the Mesquite National Rodeo!

[Kali]

64. grain? hell, alfalfa is running $17.50 a bale right now

[achtung_circus]

76. WTF size bale are you feeding. Kali. nt

[Motown_Johnny]

26. no doubt about it

When I lived in Colorado I knew a few, and twice a year had the locals herd sheep right past my apartment (blocking the entire road for a while).

[csziggy]

29. Even here in Florida there are still cowboys

My horse trainer helps some of them out in North Florida sometimes for roundups when they get loose or to move the cattle from one field to another. In South Central Florida there are much larger ranches, west and north west of Lake Okeechobee. There, they have "pastures" that cover hundreds, in not thousands of acres and truly do have roundups to sort the cattle.

Florida Cowboys: Keepers of the Last Frontier
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g842Z3MbDMM

[blueamy66]

35. Oh yes.

Come to visit me in Chandler AZ...I'll show you some real cowboys.

[Horse with no Name]

49. Legendary cowboy Don Spencer lives there

Worked for Spur.He was the best of the best.

[blueamy66]

50. I didn't know that.

I will have to Google.

[Horse with no Name]

57. Well he may not be on Google

I don't know--but that man could ride ANYTHING. If you were fortunate enough to have him break one of your horses...you knew for a fact that it would be done right and the value of that horse rose exponentially--just because Don Spencer broke it.


He was legendary in the horse circles in Arizona in the 60's and 70's. People like Larry Mahan sent THEIR horses to him.

He worked with Spur Cattle Company when they were out near Peoria and went with when they moved to Chandler. I honestly don't even know if he is still alive--but if ever a REAL cowboy walked this earth--it was him.

[blueamy66]

59. I'm gonna give my childhood friend a call.

If anyone knows anything about cowboys in Chandler, she will know!

I still curse the day that my Mom and Dad put our little 2 acre ranch for sale in the later 80s. It is a long story, but damn, whenever I drive by that house, I freaking cry.

[MiddleFingerMom]

38. Baxter Black is the most well-known of all the working cowboy "cowboy poets"...

.
.
.
...both funny and fascinating.
.
.
.
I don't know how much ranch work he still does, but years ago I sat enthralled
at a bar next to a real working cowboy who had actually worked WITH him here in
the Tucson area.
.
.
.
They're still out there and, while some (much?) work is done from/on vehicles,
horseback work is still needed and done.
.
.
.
Baxter's "Just a Dog" piece -- about losing an old friend.
.
("Something in my Eye" warning)
.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tkL9PoOABPE&feature=related
.
.
.

[Kali]

40. all over the west, Mexico, and the world if you want to be literal

but the traditional western US style cowboy is alive and well, I can assure you

[Initech]

43. Our ex president was heavily convinced he was.

[struggle4progress]

47. There haven't been any trail drives across the plains to the Chicago stockyards for many years.

People still range cattle: toss out alfalfa bales in the snow, hold spring roundup for branding &c, move the herd from winter to summer ranges ...

[Texasgal]

52. Rednecks and cowboys

are not the same.

There are plenty of cowboys left. I know several that grow grain and raise cattle.

[mulsh]

61. yes I grew up with a current cowboy here in Oakland,Ca

he went to the same grammar school and high school as I did. One year ahead of me. He ended up getting a BS and MBA at CAL and according to him "lucked into" his job. For the past 20 years or so he's spent his time working a cattle ranch out in Contra Costa county (next to my county). He said the coolest part of his job is flying a helicopter to round up strays. But he definitely still rides horses most of the time.

BTW last I heard there was still a dairy farm in SF, near Daily City and a truck farm is still in operation out by Oakland International Airport, there are still a few herds of cows graizing on that ridge around Skyline and Grizzly Peak up in the Oakland hills. we have more agriculture than medicinal marijuana around here.

I try to tell people we're really not far from the West here in the East Bay but these "auslander" never seem to believe it

[DeschutesRiver]

62. Yep. I'm in central oregon, where it begins to meet eastern oregon

I have multiple neighbors who are large acreage ranchers, who employ cowboys, who live on the ranches. Drive out an hour or so further down the road, and cowboys are all you'd find living on even bigger more isolated ranches (there are dozens of rodeos out this way in the summer). When one of my neighbors had cows who broke the fence and came onto our land (about a dozen), the rancher said "my cowboys will be right there to round them up", and a couple of hours later, his men came with horses in a trailer, pushed the cattle back across a 500 acre section to his land, fixed all the broken fences and left (probably here an hour or so).

When another neighbor who has cows but sure ain't a rancher had a few strays up here that were so wild that we couldn't push them back out by horseback, we hired a cowboy who came with 2 guys and 2 cattle dogs - the cowboys pushed them with their horses (and their most excellent dogs, who with little direction from them ran these wild ones back out of thickets where the horses couldn't go), roped them and pulle them into a trailer and we drove them back down to the neighbor's pen by his house and let them loose there.

Sometimes when I'm driving back home on the two lane highway, I have to stop behind another rancher moving his cows down the road with him and his cowboys (they also call them ranch hands here) to another section of land (one was moving them via the highway to an area over 10 miles away, no kidding).

I live amongst ranchers who do it all themselves, and those who hire cowboys/ranch hands to do it either with them or in place of them (either older ranchers, both men and women, who can't do it all, or those whose spreads are so large they need extra hands to get it all done). I have lived out here amongst them for so long that I had long forgotten that there was such a thing as a "cowboy wanna-be" guy who merely gets a thrill from dressing up for a role that he will never play. These men who do this for a living know more skills than you'd believe possible, as far as doing vet care in the middle of nowhere when it means life/death (same for themselves out there when something bad happens- cell phones don't always work where these guys do their work), fixing things, knowing the weather (flash floods can and have killed guys out riding to find strays), branding, trimming/shoeing their horses, and much more; you name it, and if it has to do with land, equipment, or animals, they can get it done. And in their off hours, they get "gussied up" and hit one of our local small bars or go to dances or potlucks or church socials. If you've read it in a western novel, these guys are still doing it pretty much the same way (although add atvs, cell phones and maybe a life flight membership for the ranch).

[jp11]

63. Yes.

Dogs and robots haven't taken their jobs yet.

[Kali]

67. ...

[MiddleFingerMom]

68. FANTASTIC pics.

.
.
.
Worth MANY thousands of words.
.
.
.
I haven't seen much of your camera work recently.
.
.
.
Too bad.
.
.
.
And Lupe sure can strike a pose.
.
.
.

[blueamy66]

71. SWEET!

nt

[shoutinfreud]

69. Sadly, technology has taken over

[RegieRocker]

73. Cowboys were outlaws and still are. Ranch hands is what you're referring

to and the answer is yes. Many truckers consider themselves as cowboys, they are also referred to as outlaws because their logbook is a complete lie.