The Thorn - A Documentary on New Mexico Cattle Ranching

the sun's not up yet and you can see the land out there everything's kind of still asleep the Sun comes up over the clouds and the desert down here wakes up and everything starts chirping and talking and you can just hear cattle bawling that's my favorite thing the thorn ranch and tells about 44,000 acres I've been working on the thorn my dad ever since I first got married and we manage that ranch along with several other ranches in Mexico Old Mexico [Music] I worked for a cattle ranch on the on the cattle hand I'm the sixth generation cattle rancher my family came to Grant County in eighteen in the 1880s it's a good lifestyle it teaches you how to work hard and good things will come for you like getting a cat wrench because you got the wide-open space you don't have the boss breathing down your neck sometimes my kids think that I loved the ranch more than them but it's not sure [Music] we didn't train very much our annual rainfall on an average I think is about my and maybe 12 inches we've had some droughts off and on and they made us cut back our herd because there's just literally not enough grass to go around [Music] this year I don't know what it is about this year but it seemed like there's just been a plague of rabbits the problem with Jackrabbits is they don't just eat the grass off the top of the head of the grass they nibble on the bottom down by the roots and most of the grasses falls over dries up that's been actually little bit drier nowadays and it was like back when my dad was around we have my better luck with rain they actually had more cows on the road run about two to three hundred head of calves and about 5-iron mother cows about thirty five goals roundup you basically go out and gather the cattle do three different round ups in the summertime at the beginning of the summer timers when we do our biggest round [Music] it's hot but that's the reason we start so early in the morning so it can take advantage of the cool weather takes a lot of manpower usually if you have a 100 150 cows in one pasture you'll need maybe 8 to 12 people on horseback everybody gets on the horse and in the same corner of the pasture basically all fan out and go different directions usually stay you know within seeing distance from each other I enjoy I've always enjoyed riding a horse because you and the horse after work as a team when you're looking for cows for generations you've worked those those cattle so when you're gathering them they kind of know where to go you work their mothers their grandmothers they kind of know the drill cattle usually tend to watch what the other one does the calves they don't know any better will try to run off so chase them [Music] it gets pretty dusty and at the end of the day when you go home and take a shower it's just dirt in the bottom of your shower [Music] after we get them all together we head towards the Corral's where you can handle them a little bit better they're not just out in the open then you'll go to sorting on them separate the mothers from the cows they ball they're kind of wondering where their mama is [Music] the roundup is the main purpose is for branding by law almost every standing us that you have to have your katha Brandon one of the common methods around here is is healing and you want to have a cowboy on his horse rope the back feet and drag them closer to the fire one of you gets on the right side and one of you gets on the left side jump down there you hold the back leg and you put your left foot on their other leg and then you just kind of lean back and you just hold them [Music] it's basically putting your name on them so that if they get across the fence somebody else can stealing from you the brand inspector to come to your aunt's to check out your cattle we'll want to make sure every one of your cattle that you're selling is brown good to prove that it's yours we'd like to put the air tag because it has a little bit of a insecticide with it they'll protect them from the Flies on the stairs we'll put it in the right ear on the heifers we put it in the left ear so we can identify them far away baby sister probably need a vaccine to help protect them or help boost their immune system or protect them from viruses where they could get sick easier so that's why we vaccinated castrating the reason we do that is because the buyer they're not going to want to buy a bull so they want to castrate it because that will keep them from coming in the heat too much of getting too excited around any other cattle or cows or heifers it might be run over and also we do it because we don't want to be in breeding without her after that guys are done if you're holding the tail you'll just hold on to the tail and the calf will just kind of pull you up so you don't have to like get up off the ground the challenge I like a challenge sometimes when it's hot and you have a long day it gets to you it wears you out it's hard work because you are handling a live animal some of them could be 200 pounds some of them could be 300 pounds and they're jumping around and kicking and just kind of full alive your hands will get cut up breathing the dust I'm sure isn't healthy for you get kicked a lot and the heats right on top of this so it is hard on your you know your muscles get sore but if you do it right no the technique it's pretty easy people might look at it as cruelty but cattle have to be branded because you have cattle wrestlers they get stolen and like I said before when you go to market your cattle the buyer a bond with the brand inspector wants to make sure that you have the stolen you want this around the cow castor oil just because it's spotless it's necessary it just feels good to be out there and feel like you're accomplishing something when you can gather pasture if the calves branded it feels like you're doing something productive out of this range land we're just trying to keep the life alive and and live and take care of the land and treat it proper and make it to where everything is better for us and for everybody I don't think I'm the type of whatever life to work indoors and I don't think I'd be the same person it's a way of a lot of pressure and wide open spaces and keeping cows happy modern day now 2017 we have just about anything you can think of but you know 200 years ago people were doing the same thing that we're doing today the good Lord us to help send that rain to you so I guess is a bit of faith and prayers just what kids gets the rain there I guess sometimes can't give up [Music] you [Music]

Channel: Sand and Stone Media

Views: 92,754

Rating: 4.8934755 out of 5

Keywords: Cattle, Round up, New Mexico, Ranch, Ranch Documentary, Cattle Ranching, Documentary, Branding, Cattle Branding, The Thorn, Sand and Stone Media, New Mexico Cattle Ranching, Cows, Horses, Cowboys, Western, Lordsburg, Mexico, West, Cowboy, Cattle Herding, Ranch Life, New Mexico Ranchers, Drone, Shot on Sony, Drone videos, Desert, Desert Ranching

Id: Q982g3SQR9E

Length: 8min 46sec (526 seconds)

Published: Thu Sep 14 2017