Top 25 Reasons to be a Cowboy | #22: The Rolling Stock

When the ranges were first being fenced up, and big ranches divvied into smaller ones, the second-biggest indignity a cowboy could endure was to be placed on a tractor. The biggest indignity? Being killed on one. And really, that possibility was no joke the early days of farm machinery.

Today, machine operation is a must for most cowboys. It is rare—maybe even nonexistent—that a cowboy saddles his horse at the ranch and trots out from headquarters day-in and day-out without ever crawling into a vehicle. Whether hauling to the backside of the ranch, putting up hay, cleaning pens, plowing snow, loading hay, or feeding cake, ranching has become mechanized.

And, unless you’re a dyed-in-the-wool purist, there’s no reason not to find a little excitement in a brand new, half-top gooseneck with saddle boxes, slam latches, and grease zerks on all the hinges. In fact, the late, great Dub Waldrip, President and CEO of the Spade Ranches, once said that the single most innovative piece of equipment he’d seen on the ranch was the gooseneck trailer.

And how about a skid loader? There’s not much you can’t do with one of those things—especially building fence, which is probably a cowboy’s biggest indignity today. And the tractors? Shoot, you can turn on the AC, listen to the radio and there’s enough headroom in the cab that you can still wear your 4 ½-inch brim so no one mistakes you for a farmer.

Just as handy is the portable equipment nowadays. Everything from loading chutes and squeeze chutes to working pens and scales can be drug down the road to wherever they’re needed for great weigh-ups and easy brandings, shippings, and receivings.

The best modern machinery marvel for ranchers, though, has got to be the trucks. I think we can even agree to set aside brand allegiances to say that pretty much all the modern trucks are awesome to drive. (When it comes to wrenching on the trucks, however, the older stuff does win the day). In the old days, pulling a trailer filled with six saddle horses required hazard lights when going uphill. Now, with these new rigs, completely loaded down drivers can fly by semis on the Interstate on their way to the ranch rodeos.

Which brings us to the ultimate rancher rig: an 18-wheel cattle truck. You know you’ve arrived when you can haul your own pot load of cattle to the sale. 

So, while cowboys must take extreme care to never let the bow go out of their legs, in this day and age there is no reason not to enjoy the rolling stock we get to use in the ranch business.