Branding at the ID Ranch

i heard a guy the other day tell me or not tell me but i heard him talking cowboying is a job it ain't easy it ain't fun but it's worth it and that to me makes no sense but at the same time it makes all the sense in the world do [Music] [Music] my name is will hudson i'm the manager on the id ranch north of sinclair wyoming i manage day-to-day operations on a cow calf outfit we run on about 160 000 acres of mix of public and private ground it's all one big chunk of land and it's been in the same family for over 135 years 140 years somewhere in there they moved the headquarters up off the north platte river in 1890 to the location it is now along the western banks of seminole reservoir it's one of the oldest family-owned ranches that hasn't changed ownership in the state not sure what number it is but it's it's pretty neat there's a lot of history there the barn and the house were built in 1890 and they're made out of limestone rock it's about 18 inches thick that's all quarried right here on the ranch started out as mostly sheep outfit and in the 1970s they converted all their sheep to over to cattle and we've primarily been a cattle ranch since then i'm only the fourth manager since they did that conversion [Music] so [Applause] [Music] do when we do bigger works we do a lot of neighboring there's several neighbors that we all help each other out just just to be able to get through and it's a pretty neat deal kind of a it's a large area we all cover but my nearest neighbor is 30 miles away and the ones we help can be anywhere from 50 to 90 miles away but they're still considered neighbors because of the community we got my name is buck marsh i'm from minnetera nebraska come up here i think i've been up here for the last four or five years to help will brand here at the id i run a finish yard feed lot background bunch of calves work for a large company that we have about ten thousand ten to fifteen thousand head of mother cows but just kind of come here to help will we're good friends come and brine calves that's what we do will also comes and helps me down in nebraska bran cavs neighbor but it's a neighbor neighbors of five and six hours apart we have a four to five day brandon ourselves and nebraska there and so we just basically neighbor that's kind of how the code of the cowboys work you you neighbor you go help each other whether you need help or just want the camaraderie and the entertainment and enjoy yourselves and have fun so to prepare for brandon we do all the cooking ourselves we set up a wall tent and a camp and an old set of corrals trail the horses out to the camp this year we trailed 35 head of horses out to camp and we had eight of us riding with them three guys in the front two guys on the side and one guy on the back [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] water [Applause] [Music] so [Music] so [Applause] so we have to trail the horses out because of uh just access it's hard to get stock trailers and pickups into where we camp at and it's another part of it is just tradition nobody does it anymore as we run 25 head of horses in our cabby and our horses know how to trail out good and stay in a bunch but it's kind of fun to bring other horses in and get them to learn how to do it too and it takes us about an hour and i think we're six miles from the headquarters to to our camp so when when it comes to pen space the pins i got there's only four of them and then we've got a decent sized horse trap and we just sort them off by who owns them basically which bunch of guys are here to just sort them off like cows run them through a gate and shut a gate behind them and then sort to another gate and shut the gate behind them just to keep them all separate so that people's horses don't get injured or kicked and and they just they do a lot better they're a lot more comfortable when they're in their own bunch because there's some pretty serious horse flush here this year everybody's got to bring a tent in the road's really sandy so can't really have people moving in and out every day it's the most efficient way to do it and then my wife does all the cooking she gets everything prepared sometimes a month ahead of time and uh make sure everybody's fed and just have a good time did you get some coffee i don't drink coffee really this is one of the pleasures of life that god has given us to mix with water today you don't like it leaves a weird taste in my mouth what about a breakfast burrito i'll get one of those [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] one of the traditions we uphold here when we have a big crew well even when it's just the three of us is we have a jig line and it's in hierarchical order of me the boss the next guy that has the most seniority on the ranch and then the next employee and so on down the line we only have three employees so that's how we get in the jig line and then after that it's just kind of with the neighbors whoever's jumps in line goes so the importance to me of a jig line is when you strike out in that jig line you do you got the boss in the lead the next man all kind of on a seniority base or if it's just neighbors you fall in what that deal is to me is if you don't know the country and if you're a lot of guys will trot abreast what they call trotting at a breast well if that boss wants to go this direction and because this guy don't know where he's going anyways well he's almost riding in front of that man to get there so that's where the jig line falls into place for that reason of that guy can maneuver where he wants to go without cutting somebody off and then there's also when you get into some of this country you can't ride it abreast it's a single trail up to get through where you're going add a good clip out of trot and to keep your pace you know we might trot out six miles to the very far back side as far as dropping people off on circle one of my guys me or one of the employees needs to be on the outside circle on either end because they know the country and they can keep everybody in the middle on on track where they're at because everybody will be looking to them or their next man who is looking at them to keep them all in line and know where the trap is going to be where we're headed with the cows whatever just depends on on the job we're doing just as long as there's a man on either end that knows where we're going we'll get there we got out of the jig line he's dropped everybody off and we now start what i would call a drive and to me when you're in the drive that's the only way a drive happens is you ride to your next man so you will trot over this ridge and you'll you might not ride to him but you see him you see what what he's got in front of him and then you basically zigzag in between each people so if you got a guy on this side of you guy here and you're in the middle you're going to ride back and forth to each man and like um you can haul her out you can you know give a war hoop of and especially in the brush or the tall trees timber you might not be able to see them but if they'll holler out you can hear them that means they're still moving on they're moving forward and y'all you don't if you don't do that a lot of times what will happen is what you'll have is you'll outrun the drive so you might have a lot of cows and then you notice that you're in the middle of the drive because you didn't ride your next man to see where he's at you know and riding to your next man is pretty critical to make it all happen to keep control of them cows because if you ride up too high too far and this guy's kicking out a bunch of cows out of a big drawl or whatever they might cut in behind you and then you miss those cows so you didn't really ride your circle so when we finally get to the brand trap we close the gates up get everybody kind of settled in start mixing vaccines get the wood fire going i'll line that the crew out on which side of the fire they're supposed to be on um we split the pan the pin in half basically not physically but there's an invisible line on half of the pin to keep it split up just to kind of for organizational purposes and i got one guy that will cut an ear notch one or two people given vaccines and then two or three wrestlers to help set ropes and keeps everybody fresh that way and then they'll stay on that same side the whole day so that they work together they get to know each other they they can do that sometimes i'll mix it up throughout the week but for the most part i try to keep everybody on the same side with the same people every day just because by day three or four they're starting to really click and work together really good [Music] [Music] oh [Music] too uh [Music] [Applause] [Music] you [Music] [Music] [Music] so depending on what side they're on each time we run through a vaccine gun which is 25 shots we'll switch ropers on that side and say the other side still has five shots left well they get to keep going until their shotgun their gun is finished and then in between switches we get breaks for water snacks catch up on whatever the story you thought of while you're roping and didn't get to tell somebody because you were busy yeah so brandon etiquette to me and the brandon trap would you you follow the same rules really you you still don't want to cut people off um when you're in there roping i i like how the there's an imaginary line of you don't cross that's their side and you got your side you might have three or four five ropers in there but if you say you've got five ropers and you kind of pair up into twos the third man's not out but you always have a calf neck coming to the fire or calf heeled coming to the fire but if you're in a head and heel situation that fifth guy he can set up shots for your healer what we'd call a block i mean when that guy's the head man's coming into the fire and your healer comes around goes to set up some a heel shot you can block that calf keep that calf coming in nice and straight to the fire um but it's still the same rules if you don't you don't cut each other off and you help set up a shot and you're looking out for your next guy as well for me brandon trap etiquette is really important one of the biggest things for the ground crew to keep them fresh [Music] [Applause] to not get somebody hurt and we're doing this six hours for of a day and a lot of calves a guy could get wore out pretty good if he's running clear across the brandon trap or usually have the older guys or neighbors running the irons and you don't want to wear them out and kill them off because you never know if you go to their place they might do that to you just to make up for it but you always want the calf to be as close to the fire as possible without putting it in the fire or mucking somebody out because we got women and kids around that sit around the fire and they're catching up and sometimes not paying attention you always want to try for two feet but if you get one that's fine definitely don't choke the calves even if you don't work on the ranch or they're not your calves you want to treat them like they're your own no matter where you go you still don't want to cut people off another big thing that really irritates me when you go to somebody else's brandings is people don't help you make a shot if you're standing there on the outside and somebody's in the herd and you see the calf there watching and looking the rope right up there and ask them what shot they want do they want to the underhand or an overhand shot and then help them get that shot on that calf instead of what standing there watching them struggle acting like a vulture just waiting to heal it when they come out slide rope on the head definitely slide rope you only need to slide about two feet you don't pop your dallies and throw them at the ground crew you slide about two feet you can do it on rubber it doesn't matter it'll ruin your rope but slide rope when those guys go to tail that calf down and it will flop down on the ground and makes life a heck of a lot easier it's another way to kill off your ground crews if you don't slide rope and they gotta man handle every one of them and it's hard on your horses you slide rope for them when you turn your horse to drag off or when you turn your horse to face up with the fire always just slide a little bit of rope it acts like a clutch on that slick horn and just spin them around and it'll after four days most of us only have one or two horses a piece so they're going to be brandon for two days and then horses will get wore out too if you're not sliding rope oh yeah get short definitely get short we got a big pin but this still ain't that big we try to have one or two calves down on the ground on either side of the fire and there's maybe enough room for a third spot but you got to get short one it's a better handle for your healer and two it's just safe a lot safer to me giving a good handle is it all starts in the herd you rope that calf and you're going to let him feel that rope things need to come tight give him some slack rolling back to the herd and then turn and take that calf out on a trot sometimes it works just perfect they'll start a nice bounce you don't want to be too fast but you don't want to be too slow so then when i when i come in and i'm watching my healer when he throws i can tell you whether if he's going to catch or miss but if i see him if he's going to catch i will take that slack out for him i'll speed up a little bit and i'll take the slack and soon as i see he's got the slack out then i will start to slow down so he can get now get his dallas depending on the caliber of what his skill set is you know there's people that are roping and come out here to do this because they want to learn but you can help them out by giving a good handle with that calf and i'd like to say it happens every time but it doesn't but you you try for it when you're going to the fire with that calf and say your healer misses you can't stop you either go on through if you're if you're in the middle you keep riding or if you're but if you haven't made it to the fire then you can stop go back to the herd as long as you don't got three or four guys standing there to get them in a rack rim farm or whatever for a heel shot i like to come in on this side and when i come in i'll point my horse's shoulder at that calf shoulder and then when that calf goes by me i'll lock my horse onto that shoulder and kick that calf out away from that header and then it also gives me a chance to just reach out there and catch two feet on that outside when it's swinging out and you can catch that calf as it comes around like that so after we get done branding on this place i only get two chances a year to count all the cows because we're just so big and with a smaller crew we aren't always able to be at the next gate sometimes we'll open the gate two or three days before we actually make the drive to out of that pasture so when we preg check in the fall and when we brand in the spring and then we get keep a calf count from our ear notching and the scrotums almost forgot what the hell so from there keep the keep a count from the ear notch on the heifers and then the scrotums on the cat or the bull calves steers at this point count them out the gate and then we want to hold them up for a little bit so they can mother up they're getting turned out into another 10 000 acre pasture and they were just got their last drink across the fence into the pasture we're coming out of so we want to make sure that most of them have found their mothers we'll sit on them for 10 15 minutes whatever it takes for them to kind of settle down some of those calves won't go look for their mothers but they'll lay down their moms will come back and find them later on but it just makes life a lot easier it makes those cows accountable too to be able to find their calves and those calves accountable to be able to find their mothers if we brand these calves and they run back through the fence because they can fit through the wires a lot more than the cows they'll end up back in that other pasture and they'll be a bum calf or the coyotes will get them so we'll sit there hold on hold them for a while kind of bump on the outsides make sure they're looking back inside the herd for their moms or the mom cows are looking back inside the herd for their babies and then once they get settled one of us will i'll give the nod and whoever i have already delegated to do this will roll around on the outside of the guys holding the herd so that those cows once they realize what's going on they'll take off in the direction i want them to go in this case it was down into a creek bottom where they're on green feeding water and they'll go down there they get a drink right away they'll start eating grass and they're not going to run off run back run up the mountain whatever they're going to be comfortable in that bottom till they realize that it's time for their baby to eat or their babies are hungry then they'll turn around or probably have them right next to their side and just everything's comfortable so on this place one of the traditions i like to keep too is just the family atmosphere the employees their wives we're all a big family we live out here 35 miles from the nearest town all we have is each other really to to hang out and see and sometimes it can be difficult because you go home and you live where you work and you look outside out the window and see where you work and sometimes you just can never get away from it but family is really important to me we're all here helping this week i got a couple of wives are given vaccines one's ear tagging my wife's been out roping one of the other guys wives is out roping it just uh it's fun to see everybody being involved when we brand calves out here so with having these the two boys here roping and my wife's here is well roping she ropes right alongside us they're super good hands but to to be able to watch them kids grow into being adults eventually and to go out on their own it makes me feel super good to know that these these boys are going to keep this tradition going and not just to keep it going but to be functioning in society um and this is kind of our time to where so we homeschool both of the boys and they get to go wherever we go um doing whatever we do and so having them out and about with us all the time it's it's wonderful great and they also uh they're some days they're like hired men so they're just more help but and super good colt hands uh both of them ride train colts uh 116 one's 13 now so they'll be better than me one day hopefully that's the goal the goal for me would be that they would be better than me and so yeah so we're kind of a melting pot in this area there's a lot of buckaroo influence a lot of texas influence nebraska colorado all of us go around helping neighbors some guys use nord forks some guys heal and drag and then we flank the calves we head and heal several other neighbors head and heal it's just neat that we're all good enough hands to jump in do the job that needs to be done the way the boss wants it done and get it done efficiently and smoothly and work together and have fun 95 percent of cowboying is paying attention to what the hell's going on the other 5 is just dumb luck [Music] [Music] [Music] so [Music] [Music] do hmm you

Channel: 3:10 Ranch Life

Views: 106,130

Rating: 4.90099 out of 5

Keywords: Buckaroo, cowboy, roping, ranch roping, rope horses, ranch horses, horses, cattle ranch, wyoming, wyoming cattle ranch, roping calves, branding, branding season, branding calves, cow calf pairs, drone, cowboy work, ranch work, cowboy documentary

Id: ZeQQ1UpqJnc

Length: 34min 39sec (2079 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 05 2021