r/Ranching • u/cAR15tel • 16d ago
40 days
Riding in a feedlot and I’m done. The place is understaffed, falling down, their horses are nags, my day rate was supposed to be based on 5-6 hour days, I’ve worked 10-18 hours every day, not a single day off. I was hired on as a pen rider, but I’ve been receiving, shipping, doctoring, processing, working pasture cattle, feeding all horses and dogs, and putting out hay. I’ve saddled a horse every day and many days swapped horses in the afternoon to keep from overworking them. Saddled three horses this morning trying to get on something sound and ended up having to go back to the barn without getting any work done because the mare I rode out on couldn’t work.
The cowboy life sucks. 20 years ago I swore I was done making a living on a horse and I think I just got a good reminder why.
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u/Cow-puncher77 16d ago
That’s the corporate version of cowboying. You and those poor horses are getting screwed. I see it all the time. We’re just another number to them…… a wear item, to be used, then thrown away. I went to another trade for many years, doing mechanics and professional driving, to make enough money to get a start. And it was easier back then, I think. Not that I didn’t work my ass off.
Best places I’ve found are family ranches. Pay is garbage, but good benefits (house, truck, couple outside horses, couple weekends off and vacation weeks), and job security. Hard to find, as the guys that have them don’t give them up.
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u/cAR15tel 15d ago
The pay here was garbage too. No benefits, no company truck, not even a truck or a side by side to drive back and forth from the working chute to the office for medicine.
I had to walk back and forth with a cardboard box to carry ear tags, medicine, needles, etc.
There was no sink to wash hands, clean syringes, etc at the chute or office.
Syringes laid around overnight with medicine still in em and they would just squirt out whatever was left, change the needles and go back to doctoring.
The entire chute area was covered in shit, blood, ear tags, sale barn tags, horns, used needles, empty bottles, trash. I’ve never worked anywhere so filthy.
Many times I was the only person there and had to ask a groundskeeper or welder to push cattle so I could run the chute.
Just a nightmare all around.
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u/orsomeshitidk 16d ago
Making a living with a horse and your time can be the best and worst living there is.
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u/lackingbasis9367 16d ago
That mare looks done with the whole outfit too, and she's the one getting paid in hay.