Well the rancher who lets me shoot on his land had his branding round up last weekend. We gathered cattle and fixed fences and corrals all Saturday. Then on Sunday we worked 50 cows, 64 heifers and 5 bulls through the chutes for vaccinations, worming and year branding the replacement heifers. Then we branded, ear notched, tagged, castrated and vaccinated 48 calves.

Man, I'm getting too old to throw calves anymore, I'm still sore all over today. Thankfully we had half a dozen testosterone crazed teenage boys to help out.

Which one of the wranglers pictured is you?
Inquiring minds want to know.
Looks like fun but hard work.

muck

Sooooo.......when is the nut fry????

Jim

I'm the one behind the camera on that shot. I was castrating and ear notching but the one on the right was a heifer so I took the opportunity to take the picture.

We had rocky mountain oysters right after we finished all the calves. Tritip, chicken and antelope over oak coals, potato salad, macaronii salad, two types of chili and ranch beans, garlic bread, etc.

The girl on the left is my oldest daughter and she had her first oyster there.

So you guys don't use rubber rings for castrating calves??

quote:

Originally posted by TOP_PREDATOR:
So you guys don't use rubber rings for castrating calves??

Nope, we use a sharp pocket knife and spray on antiseptic

I'm going to tell my mates at P.E.T.A about this Frank

quote:

Originally posted by TOP_PREDATOR:
I'm going to tell my mates at P.E.T.A about this Frank

What Frank really meant to say is that "we perform a field surgical proceedure, complete with infection control measures."

Got yer back Frank. Nate

Boy does that look familiar, I can still smell the burning hair from last year.
Your supposed to cook those oysters in the branding tubes, the calves look at ya real funny while yer eatin em. Then send them peta idiots a picture and tell em what yer doing.
Testosterone laden teenage ranch kids that know what work really is are a valuable commodity when it comes to throwing calves. Keeps us old guys from lookin bad
That's the best of what the west really is, people helping people. Everyone helps their neighbors at branding time, makes for some great get-togethers (except it smells like burning hair).

Looks like a fun wkend.

Does every cow poke have to wear the same Red plaid shirt?

If we did that in M-ASSachusetts we would all be arrested and locked in jail. I'm in the WRONG STATE!

quote:

Originally posted by RustyD:
Does every cow poke have to wear the same Red plaid shirt?

That was a joke. The guy who owns the ranch wears either bright red or red plaid shirts all the time and so a bunch of the guys all went out and bought identical shirts just for the heck of it. I think that there was actually six people in the same color shirts.