Roundup Time In The Texas Panhandle

[Dee]

I was invited by ranchers to help with roundup.i help them with branding, vaccinating, tagging, and cuttin bull calves, and they help me with mine.

Met some of the greatest guys you'd ever wanna meet, saw some fantastic cow horses work, and cowboys do stuff with a rope I couldn't do in my younger days.

Then it was a ranch cooked meal for everybody.

Starts again in the morning at 5:30 sharp with a ranch breakfast. Brings back some good old memories.  I can't wait.

[Ranger99]

Good luck
If it's the old fashioned hot iron
brand, I'd have to be doing something
else. I can't think of anything that
smells worse
Maybe you can find a road killed possum
to wear as a necklace to combat the
branding stink
The rest of it ain't bad. Not even the de nutting
I don't think anybody uses the orings anymore
Hopefully there's a good quality chute.
I helped a man years ago with tags and paste
and he had a rickety homemade chute that
was slightly better than trying to hold the
beef by hand

[Dee]

No chute for the calves. One cowboy heads, and the other heels on the bigger calves, on the late calves, a cowboy ropes and dragster up. A cowboy on the ground will flank him, then one will get on his head, another on the back legs. Another will vaccinate, another will ear tag, another will castrate, and the last will brand.

[ironglow]

  Congratulations Dee, it is always great to be doing a job you really enjoy...

[nw_hunter]

Good times! I got to do that in Oklahoma 30 yrs or so ago. I got to be friends with several ranchers, and helped them with their roundups. People like me who knew cows but were not cowboys did the tasks the cowboys couldn't do from horseback. Drove ahead and set things up at the pens, and such. Hard work for a couple of days, but I wouldn't have missed it. And, these ranchers had some killer ponds as big as some lakes, that had great fishing, and I had the key to use them. That was the pay,plus some fantastic cook outs, and all the prairie oysters you wanted. Those Osage Indian friends of mine made some lip smakin  fries with them.

[Dee]

Biscuits, scrambled eggs, gravy, and hot coffee for breakfast, and BBQ for dinner. Five ranches, including 1 cowboy from the 6666s, 2 from the Turkey Track. Two cowboys heeling calves and drggin'em to the fire. The team I was on could tag, vaccinate, castrate, and brand a bull calf in about 2 minutes.
 
We processed about 250 head of calves before 11am. Starting again at daylight.

[Dee]

These two pictures are of the first gather. Got about 250 calves out of this drive. We'll get the south side of this pasture in the morning.

[ironglow]

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_it6bKgzwY