Trailing Cattle in the Madame's Neighborhood
Trailing Cattle in the Madame’s Neighborhood
by
MIke Capron
Well I was excited to see what we had left under the rock ledge. I just knew they would still be there. I have been called an optimist. We left early and had decided to enter the rock draw from a point much lower than where we left them. I wanted to calmly bump them up the draw, in hopes they would think they were one jump ahead of me. I wasn’t sure where they would get out of the draw. I was most interested in going as slow as possible as I wanted to see them close up and see if I could recognize any of them. Maybe from the time we jumped them and roped the first bulls. I had been able to start putting together some of the origin of these cattle. The boss said he had bought some cattle from the man who leased it when we left in the early eighties. The cattle were Salers Brahma Cross. I had never heard of or worked around any Salers before. These cattle before we got there had a poor history of any regular or consistent working habits. The only method of working had been to get what ever available crew could be mustered. Experience was not a necessary requirement . Just get in a line and ride to the nearest corral and close the gate on what went into the pen. Ship everything except the cows with little calves . It didn’t take the cattle long to figure out the escape routes and how to remain free and loose. The boss wouldn’t allow any more than three or four days for the cow works in the spring and fall. He said cattle didn’t make enough money to spend any more time than that on the cow works. The boss didn’t like cattle and he had made it clear to me when I went to work there. I don’t talk about cattle, that is your department.
Back to the little bunch we are following up the cutbank draw. They had been a little flighty, but now bad. They were going uphill and it was a little rocky and ruff. The puppies were on my tail and not adding any pressure. I had been able to study the cattle and had not seen anything that I recognized. They all looked familiar. I finally realized they looked similar to Madame Motley. This made sense. The Madame Motley breeding lines were the most natural in this part of the ranch. One of the most remote corners of the ranch and least molested. It is natural for cattle in the wild to stay in their family orders. This can create both good and bad traits. This close breeding increases the gene pools and the individuals become more and more alike.This can be good and bad. It causes some desirable and undesirable strengths……I like these possibilities, but you have to be very careful and be sure to cull anything undesirable. But so far so good , I could see strong salers traits in all of them. They were flighty , but good hustlers and mothers. They were all fertile and very few dry cows. I just kept this bunch in sight and watched where they were going. They came out of the rocky draw near the top of the north pasture rim. This was very much in Madame Motley’s stomping grounds. They continued to go straight towards the corals that had the water trough in it, where I penned Madame Motley’s bunch. It amazed me how all of these cattle were so familiar with this part of the ranch. I hadn’t used the puppies yet as the cattle were most reasonable and would let me ride around directing them anywhere I wanted to go, but I was getting a little nervous the closer we got to the corrals, because I wanted to pen them in the corrals where we penned Madame Motley’s bunch. It is always more difficult to pen cattle than to loose drive them in a pasture. But to my amazement they went right in the corrals and straight to the water trough. I closed the gate and rode around to the other side and closed the gate on the back side. Too easy……………I wanted to pat myself on the back. We worked this bunch and turned the biggest part of them back out into Madame’s old stomping grounds, in hopes it would attract Madame home.