Since the average cow herd size in Missouri is about 27 cow-calf pairs, and two thirds of all registered Angus cows belong to people with 15 head or less, it makes sense for most people to use less costly, yet efficient means to work with these animals.
In the long term, horses are still the most economical and efficient way to work with cattle, and help keep all involved fit at the same time.
I save fuel and wear and tear on my tractors by unrolling two to four days of hay in different pastures ahead of time on tractor day. On horse days, I ride out to let cattle in those different pastures and scatter the hay around more at the same time. My horse gets to sample the hay as he watches me get some exercise here. Most of the time, I will just jump on a horse bareback to do this. His back and the exercise helps keep me warm in the winter time.
During the grazing season, I use saddle horses to roll out and roll in poly lines, move water tanks, and mineral to new pastures. I will lead cattle to new pastures every 3 to 6 days on horseback. For moving things that weigh 100 pounds or less, I use 10-foot poly feeders without the metal framework to toboggan them behind a horse. I have a rope attached that I snag with a handy stick and then dally it to my saddle horn. I began designing a cart that would quick attach, and detach from the saddle horn a few years back. But I need help from a creative thinker and designer to perfect the concept to make it simple, fun, and safe to use.
The practical use of a horse in this modern age for most people is to help cut the flab from our bodies. It is tragic how we spend money on exercise machines we never use because we are usually not accomplishing something or going somewhere while we get a work out. With horses, the groundwork and saddle work of true horsemanship has more potential to give both dance partners work outs while we are getting something done at the same time. It also develops a more well-rounded relationship between horse and human making us more usable all the time.
We humans have a unique way of boring each other to tears with our specialization. Some of us are sunny day foot washers, and some are talkers. Those of us who take Jesus Christ seriously realize that the consistent foot washing is more important, because that does the talking also.
All the unique ways we work with a horse on the ground are great foot washing techniques for getting us better in the saddle to give horse and rider a smoother safer ride and get us all in better shape. Then we can have our cake and eat it too.
Remember, economics is the science of common sense and the frosting on the cake is we can run faster and jump higher at the same time.
Mike Daniels is a horsemanship trainer and barefoot trimming specialist from Raymondville. Email: rlhorse58@yahoo.com.
