Hi! I'm Shakespeare... I'm a cow horse. I know what you're thinking, That's a weird name for a cow horse. Well, Mom named me and I like it.
First, I'll tell you about myself. I'm a good looking sorrel Quarter horse gelding, living in the Panhandle of Texas. Dad took me to a PNH clinic in Amarillo, then another one in Alva, Oklahoma. Dave Ellis was the instructor, and boy, did I teach my Dad a lot! I like this PNH stuff, and so does my Dad. He's not your normal cowboy, you see. He's beginning to think like a horse!
Okay, I'll tell you about the real life of a cowboy. We work at a small pre-conditioning feedlot... capacity 3,000 head. We also have about a thousand acres of wheat pasture. The calves come in weighing about 250-300 pounds, and we keep them till they weigh about 700 pounds. I always hear Dad muttering about how the toughest part of his job is keeping the little calves healthy... most of them should still be on their Mama's you know.
Okay, here's how my day goes. Dad shows up at the crack of dawn every day... Saturday and Sunday, too. Rain, snow, wind, hail, sunshine... it doesn't matter. Those cows have to be fed every day. Dad catches one of us up (there are four of us in his string, alternating days) and gives us some grain. We eat while he feeds the cows. Takes a couple of hours. Then it's time to go check the pens for sick cows. We go into the pen of about 70 head of calves, and Dad looks for sick ones. We just walk through the cows, we don't want to get them riled up. When Dad finds a sick one, we work him towards the gate, as slow and easy as possible. Sometimes the calves get stupid, wanting to run. That's When us cow-horses step it up. We just read the calf, and do whatever juking and jiving we need to do to get him out the gate. This is when the horse really shines... everyone knows it's the horse that makes the cowboy look good! After we get all the pens ridden, Dad has to doctor the sick ones. Yep, we're always short-handed and Dad says the pay isn't very good, but that's the life of a modern-day cowboy.
After the doctoring is done, Dad sometimes gets to have lunch. Then we ride pastures. We have anywhere from 500 to 2000 head of calves on pasture. Any sick ones, we rope and doctor. (If ya'll are interested, I can tell you some stories about that!) Sometimes the cows get out and we have to track them and drive them back to pasture. This usually happens during a blizzard or a rainstorm, but that's another chapter. I'm just glad Mom is understanding when Dad comes in almost midnight and says "I've been fixing fence." The cows have to be fed again, and all the horses, then if there's any daylight left, Dad does repairs around the place... there's always repairs needing to be done.
Dad usually drags home after dark, doing his chores around the barn in the dark. Then he gets to see Mom and Li'l Will (20 months old). Somehow he still finds the energy to play with Will, I don't know how he does it.
This is a real condensed version of a day in the life of a working cow horse. I'll go into more depth in some of my other stories. It's hard work and long hours, for both the horse and the cowboy. But we all love our job. It's really a way of life, not a job. And I wouldn't trade it for the world!
Until next time,
Shakespear
