Cattle Branding

The TY Ranch carries on a western ranching traditon.

The ranch is dark. The moon is about to be replaced by the sun of early, early spring. The stars twinkle in the night sky as the headlights of trucks pulling trailers full of horses make their way down the caleche road, across the Bosque River, to the holding pens. Coffee is brewing over an open fire as the smoke blows by the chuckwagon and a rustic table lined with the makings of breakfast burritos.

It’s branding day at the TY Ranch. Cowboys & Cowgirls arrive to the ranch, horses saddled in the trailer, ready to ride out at 8 am sharp to gather the cattle herd. Don’t be late or you are in for a chapping. Ty gives you a nice hard smack on the rear with his thick pair of leather chaps. Seventeen year old Rocker Steiner & his friend Leighton learned the hard way.

We still do things the traditional way around here.

Gathering

Saddled up by sun up, the cowhands ride off under Ty’s direction to gather 250 head of mother cows and their calves from a 500 acre pasture. I love hearing Ty’s stories of gathering wild, mean cattle in the brushy, cactus covered, rocky terrain of the southwest and the sometimes funny incidents that occur & show the toughness of the cowboys. The gathering of our cattle doesn’t add to the wild cowboy stories but is a lot more peaceful. There are prickly pear cactus clusters dotted here and there and a few mesquites, cedar or live oak trees but there aren’t many places for the cattle to hide. The terrain is gently sloped and our Angus cows are even more gentle. The calves are a cross between an Angus cow and a Charlois bull and they are strong and sturdy.

• 

• 

• 

Working Quietly

Ty really values horsemanship and I may be making a word up here but “cattlemanship” as well. He sends the cowhands off to certain areas of the pasture and everyone meets back up in a semi-circle shape pushing the herd towards the pens. Ty encourages the cowhands to work slow and to work with the nature of the cattle. A slight bit of pressure from a ways back always gets the job done better than intense pressure that will usually cause the herd to scatter in a million directions. Every now and then a calf will break through the line of horses and Ty will send a cowboy or two off in a gallop to cut the calf off and push it back to the herd.

I enjoy riding out to gather and usually just stick close to Ty. I didn’t grow up ranching so I observe and learn. This year I stayed back with my 2.5 year old daughter Oakley and step-son Kase. Once Oakley is a bit older, Ty can pony her (lead her and her pony behind his horse) and we can all gather together but right now we both value keeping her safe above all else. She loves to ride in the saddle with Ty, but that is a lot for Ty to manage while leading the branding.

Sorting & Branding

The moo’s of the cows echo across the ranch as they near the working pens. Once they are all in the pens it is time to sort the cows and calves. A cowboy or cowgirl will stand at the opening of a pen and several other cowhands will be working the pairs in the pen and pushing them towards the opening. The cowhand manning the gate will let the cows through but not the calves. It’s imperative the cowboy be mounted on a quick, handy horse in the gate to make this job run much smoother. The horse must be able to pivot on his hind end quickly to cut off the calves. In 15 minutes they can sort through about 200 pair.

Ty tries to avoid a hot day and churning the herd. Churning the herd means constantly working through the whole herd of cattle by keeping them all together and moving them around all day. By separating the cows from the calves and then separating the calves into smaller groups, the cattle not being worked can just sit quietly in a holding pen instead of getting anxious every time a horse moves through them.

Once the pairs are separated, Ty works quickly to set everything up and ensure we reunite the pair as quickly as possible and keep the stress levels of the herd as low as possible. It’s now time for a cowboy to rope a calf by it’s hind feet and pull him a couple of yards to the branding fire. It’s the safest and quickest way to get a 250 pound calf moved towards two flankers which effortlessly get the calf laid down with the right technique.

• 

• 

• 

A crew of cowhands will be waiting and once the flankers get the calf down several cowhands will have the job of

• Vaccinating
• Dehorning if needed
• Ear marking
• Hot branding and then applying oil to the brand to help it heal and peel better & keep flies off
• Castrating the bull calves (takes the testosterone down and makes the meat more tender and bulls tend to fight).
• Spraying an iodine solution where the bull calves were castrated (This is a good job for the kids).
• Implantation to make a bigger calf

This is all done in about 30 seconds. Then the calf is up and gets to run into a holding trap where he can sit quietly until we are finished. It operates like a NASCAR pit crew. It looks like controlled chaos from untrained outside eyes looking in.

Once all the calves have been worked the crew runs the Mama cows through the chutes to vaccinate and fly dope them. Then they are reunited with their calves.

Traditional Fire Branding vs. Freeze Branding

Ty prefers branding with a hot iron instead of running calves through a chute and freeze branding them. One, he’s a cowboy and he likes making good horses and the branding is one of the reasons for making a good horse. Roping is fun and you get to put your roping skills to the test. Running calves through a chute doesn’t require horses. You can easily get kicked by a calf moving them through the chute and they don’t want to go through and the chutes are notorious for smashing fingers. Freeze branding, while less painful, takes more time and can be more costly. It seems like a trade of being less painful but spending more time under stress. Ty feels like branding traditionally it’s quicker and safer when you have good hands and move quietly and quickly.

If you’ve watched the show “Yellowstone,” you’ve seen the ranch hands being branded on their chest. Rocker Steiner (the one who was chapped) branded himself with his families’ brand of 6 generations. He said it didn’t hurt bad. I’m not believing it but he is a lot tougher than me!

Work and Fun

Our branding is part work and part social event. Ty takes the time to let younger generations of cowhands take their turn to learn the skills needed for working in the branding pens.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

Friends and family gather, some to help work cows and some to just enjoy the day. Our good friend Tomas Garcilazo even put on a show for the kids and had his horse “dance” and showcased his roping skills. (He just won “The Go Big Show” on TBS).

Our 2018 branding is where Ty and I announced the gender of our baby. We had Kase unwrap a pair of boots and they were cowgirl boots. As you can see, from Kase’s face, he wasn’t too excited that he was getting a sister instead of a brother.

Chuckwagon Cooking

To honor the tradition of the American West, Ty has Homer Robertson come out with his chuckwagon and cook everyone lunch in dutch ovens over an open fire. The sourdough rolls are to die for!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

A Family Tradition & Memories Made.

The smell of burnt hair lingers through the air in our own hair and on our clothes. The branding fire extinguished, faces sunburnt, chaps a little more weathered, horses unsaddled, trailers loaded….the memories of another TY Ranch Branding are made. The cows and calves will spend their time grazing under the Texas sun until fall when we will sell the calves and ship them out and the pregnant cows will get ready to birth another calf in the winter.

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

•